It is unfortunate for an artist or critic to belong to any "school"
whatsoever. Belonging to a school circumscribes a man's sympathies. It
shuts him away from outside sources of enjoyment, and makes him
incapable of appreciating many new works of art, because he has
prejudged them even before they were written. Poetry is greater than
any definition of it. There is no doubt that _Marpessa_ is a real
poem; and there is no doubt that the same description is true of
_The Everlasting Mercy_.

In _The Everlasting Mercy_, the prize-fight, given in detail, by
rounds, is followed by an orgy of drunkenness rising to a scale almost
Homeric. The man, crazy with alcohol, runs amuck, and things begin to
happen. The village is turned upside down. Two powerful contrasts are
dramatically introduced, one as an interlude between violent phases of
the debauch, the other as a conclusion. The first is the contrast
between the insane buffoon and the calm splendour of the night.

I opened window wide and leaned
Out of that pigstye of the fiend
And felt a cool wind go like grace
About the sleeping market-place.
The clock struck three, and sweetly, slowly,
The bells chimed Holy, Holy, Holy;
And in a second's pause there fell
The cold note of the chapel bell,
And then a cock crew, flapping wings,
And summat made me think of things.
How long those ticking clocks had gone
From church and chapel, on and on,
Ticking the time out, ticking slow