Modern poetry, like the modern consciousness of which it is the epitome¹, seems to stand irresolute² at a crossways with no signpost. It is hardly conscious of its own indecision, which it manages to conceal³ from itself by insisting that it is lyrical, whereas it is merely impressionist. The value of impressions depends upon the quality of the mind which receives and renders them, and to be lyrical demands at least as firm a temper of the mind, as definite and unfaltering a general direction, as to be epic⁵. Roughly speaking, the present poetical⁷ fashion may, with a few conspicuous⁸ exceptions, be described as poetry without tears. The poet may assume a hundred personalities⁹ in as many poems, or manifest a hundred influences, or he may work a single sham¹⁰ personality threadbare or render piecemeal¹¹ an undigested influence. What he may not do, or do only at the risk of being unfashionable, is to attempt what we may call, for the lack of a better word, the logical progression of an oeuvre. One has no sense of the rhythm of an achievement. There is an output of scraps¹², which are scraps, not because they are small, but because one scrap¹³ stands in no organic relation to another in the poet's work. Instead of lending each other strength, they betray each other's weakness.

Yet the organic progression for which we look, generally in vain, is not

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