It will be observed that in the special sort of picture-making which
Imagist poetry achieves, the question of free verse is merely incidental.
"We fight for it as a principle of liberty," says Miss Lowell, but she
does not insist upon it as the only method of writing poetry. Mr.
Aldington admits frankly that about forty per cent of _vers libre_ is
prose. Mr. Lowes, as we have already remarked, has printed dozens of
passages from Meredith's novels in the typographical arrangement of free
verse so as to emphasize their "imagist" character. One of the most
effective is this:

"He was like a Tartar
Modelled by a Greek:
Supple
As the Scythian's bow,
Braced
As the string!"

Suppose, however, that we agree to defer for the moment the vexed question
as to whether images of this kind are to be considered prose or verse.
Examine simply for their vivid picture-making quality the collections
entitled _Imagist Poets_ (1915,1916,1917), or, in the _Anthology of
Magazine Verse_ for 1915, such poems as J. G. Fletcher's "Green Symphony"
or "H. D.'s" "Sea-Iris" or Miss Lowell's "The Fruit Shop." Read Miss
Lowell's extraordinarily brilliant volume _Men, Women and Ghosts_ (1916),
particularly the series of poems entitled "Towns in Colour." Then read the
author's preface, in which her artistic purpose in writing "Towns in
Colour" is set forth: "In these poems, I have endeavoured to give the
colour, and light, and shade, of certain places and hours, stressing _the
purely pictorial effect_, and with little or no reference to any other