seeing at a distance a colossal statue, feeling some surprise when I
discovered that the monument was erected to Sir Francis Drake, "in
recognition of his having introduced the potato into Europe." Here was
where eulogy became almost too specific, and I felt that their Drake
was not my Drake.

Mr. Noyes called _Drake_, published in 1908, an English Epic. It
is not really an epic--it is a historical romance in verse, as
_Aurora Leigh_ is a novel. It is interesting from beginning to
end, more interesting as narrative than as poetry. It is big rather
than great, rhetorical rather than literary, declamatory rather than
passionate. And while many descriptive passages are fine, the pictures
of the terrible storm near Cape Horn are surely less vivid than those
in _Dauber_. Had Mr. Noyes written _Drake_ without the
songs, and written nothing else, I should not feel certain that he was
a poet; I should regard him as an extremely fluent versifier, with
remarkable skill in telling a rattling good story. But the
_Songs_, especially the one beginning, "Now the purple night is
past," could have been written only by a poet. In _Forty Singing
Seamen_ there is displayed an imagination quite superior to
anything in _Drake_; and I would not trade _The Admiral's
Ghost_ for the whole "epic."

As a specific illustration of his lyrical power, the following poem
may be cited.

THE MAY-TREE

The May-tree on the hill
Stands in the night