mountains, turns the powerful light of his genius on the old giant;
the mists disappear; and we see again a form venerable and august.

The saint and poet dwell apart; but thou
Wast holy in the furious press of men,
And choral in the central rush of life.
Yet didst thou love old branches and a book,
And Roman verses on an English lawn....

Yet not for all thy breathing charm remote,
Nor breach tremendous in the forts of Hell,
Not for these things we praise thee, though these things
Are much; but more, because thou didst discern
In temporal policy the eternal will;

Thou gav'st to party strife the epic note,
And to debate the thunder of the Lord;
To meanest issues fire of the Most High.

William Watson, a Yorkshireman by birth and ancestry, was born on the
second of August, 1858. His first volume, _The Prince's Quest_,
appeared in 1880. Seldom has a true poet made a more unpromising
start, or given so little indication, not only of the flame of genius,
but of the power of thought. No twentieth century English poet has a
stronger personality than William Watson. There is not the slightest
tang of it in _The Prince's Quest_. This long, rambling romance,
in ten sections, is as devoid of flavour as a five-finger exercise. It
is more than objective; it is somnambulistic. It contains hardly any
notable lines, and hardly any bad lines. Although quite dull, it never
deviates into prose--it is always somehow poetical without ever