A form about which I have written and spoken so much
that it seems hardly necessary to explain it here. Let me hastily add,
however, that the word "prose" in its name refers only
to the typographical arrangement, for in no sense is this a prose form.
Only read it aloud, Gentle Reader, I beg, and you will see what you will see.
For a purely dramatic form, I know none better in the whole range of poetry.
It enables the poet to give his characters the vivid, real effect
they have in a play, while at the same time writing in the `decor'.

One last innovation I have still to mention. It will be found
in "Spring Day", and more fully enlarged upon in the series,
"Towns in Colour". 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 aspect of the places described. It is an enchanting thing
to wander through a city looking for its unrelated beauty,
the beauty by which it captivates the sensuous sense of seeing.

I have always loved aquariums, but for years I went to them and looked,
and looked, at those swirling, shooting, looping patterns of fish,
which always defied transcription to paper until I hit upon
the "unrelated" method. The result is in "An Aquarium".
I think the first thing which turned me in this direction
was John Gould Fletcher's "London Excursion", in "Some Imagist Poets".
I here record my thanks.

For the substance of the poems -- why, the poems are here.
No one writing to-day can fail to be affected by the great war
raging in Europe at this time. We are too near it to do more
than touch upon it. But, obliquely, it is suggested in many of these poems,