For gold or purple once he knows its worth?
Could he give Christ up were his worth as plain?
Therefore, I say, to test man, the proofs shift,
Nor may he grasp that fact like other fact,
And straightway in his life acknowledge it,
As, say, the indubitable bliss of fire.

One of the functions of the poet is to awaken men and women to the
knowledge of the delights of the mind, to give them life instead of
existence. As Mr. Watson nobly expresses it, the aim of the poet "is
to keep fresh within us our often flagging sense of life's greatness
and grandeur." We can exist on food; but we cannot live without our
poets, who lift us to higher planes of thought and feeling. The poetry
of William Watson has done this service for us again and again.

In 1884 appeared _Epigrams of Art, Life, and Nature_. I do not
think these have been sufficiently admired. As an epigrammatist Mr.
Watson has no rival in Victorian or in contemporary verse. The epigram
is a quite definite form of art, especially cultivated by the poets in
the first half of the seventeenth century. Their formula the terse
expression of obscene thoughts. Mr. Watson excels the best of them in
wit, concision, and grace; it is needless to say he makes no attempt
to rival them as a garbage-collector. Of the large number of epigrams
that he has contributed to English literature, I find the majority not
only interesting, but richly stimulating. This one ought to please Mr.
H. G. Wells:

When whelmed are altar, priest, and creed;
When all the faiths have passed;
Perhaps, from darkening incense freed,