"On the uttermost far-flung ridge of ice and snow
That over pits of sunset fire hangs sheer
My naked spirit poises, then leaps clear
From the cold crystal into the furnace glow
Of ruby and amber lucencies, and dives
For the brief moment of ten thousand lives
Through fathomless infinities of light,

Then cleansed by lustral flame and frost returns ;
And for an instant through my body burns

The immortal fire of cold white ecstacy,

As down the darkening valley of the night
I keep the old track of mortality."

Only by a comprehensive view of his work can one appreciate Mr. Gibson's great versatility-in form as well as in content. For he has used with marked success varying verse and stanza forms as well as free verse of many styles. Already in The Web of Life he showed himself a master of that traditional poetic diction; in Fires and Livelihood his diction is a newer realistic sort, still poetic. It has been much dicussed; but one need only say that while simple, it is always sufficiently ornate and varied for the purpose; and it is artistic, for the words never obtrude themselves upon the reader's attention. Like his verse form, his diction is often unusual in that it is finely adapted to the mood and thought, and the thought is not always the usual poetic idea that we have been trained to expect. His work does not suffer from diffuseness; on the contrary, to his rigorous economy of expression and material is due much of the extraordinary appeal or the intensity of his poetry. An example of this simplicity and compression of form is the fine little poem Dream-ComeTrue, from Neighbours:

"Dearest, while it would sometimes seem

As if I really had the art

Of putting into words the dream

That fills another's heart;

"And though in its own dream-come-true

My heart sings ever like a bird's,

The wonder of my life with you

I cannot put in words."

Mr. Gibson, moreover, has written well in all three kinds of poetry-dramatic, epic, and lyric. He has written of widely dif

ferent places, of many themes; he has not confined himself to poems about the poor. But inasmuch as few poets have written of the industrial classes (and none better than he has done), this part of his work is most distinctive.

The respect in which Mr. Gibson shows greatest originality is referred to often by calling him the most artistic of sociologist-poets, although the connotation of this phrase is unfortunate and distasteful to the poet himself. He has written about nearly all kinds of laborers, but he never has had the attitude of a scientific investigator, a cataloguer of human ills, a well-meaning onlooker in search for material. As he says, he has written merely of the people he knew. But he knew these people sympathetically and thoroughly. One would need only to review the work (sometimes merely scattered poems) of such poets as Crabbe, Wordsworth, Hood, Ebenezer Elliott, Mrs. Browning, Robert Buchanan, Whitman, Carpenter, Davidson, and Mr. Frost-not to name the little-known writers like Charles Jones, Joseph Skipsey, Robert Blatchford, and Carter-to see that in art, in truth, and in comprehensiveness Mr. Gibson surpasses most of them as a poet of the people.

This suggests another feature of Mr. Gibson's work. Although his early writing shows the assimilation of the past masters of English verse, as would that of all young English poets, yet he is singularly free from so-called literary influences. Nor can he be named a member of the "Masefield school of poets"-even if there is such a thing-for he and Mr. Masefield began to publish about the same time and each developed independently in his own direction. Neither is Mr. Gibson a theorist about prosody. When I read what must be, technically speaking, "homophonic prose" on how to write poetry, I recall Mr. Bernard Shaw's statement: "He who can, does; he who cannot, teaches." Mr. Gibson does-write poetry.

When critics begin to enumerate special features of Mr. Gibson's poetry, they generally examine only a part and then seize on some idea that is of minor significance, such as the poet's keen sensitiveness to color. Now color must always be prominent in the descriptive passages of all great poetry, for it is the pictorial element best suited to expression in words. It is

only to be expected that poets should use color with greater freedom and success than form, value, or composition, all of which are available to the painter. It is true that Mr. Gibson has excelled in the use of color; but he has excelled in other respects also, and his skilful handling of color is no more marked than his achievements in other directions.

Mr. Gibson is the notable example of a man who has the understanding born of sympathetic imagination, which Mr. Galsworthy once said was the greatest possession in life. And, like him, Mr. Gibson portrays the wrongs of society without proposing remedies. Like all poets of the first order, he seldom moralizes and never preaches. He shows his universality as well as his modernity in the absence of the trappings of orthodox theology. His greatness appears in his artistic detachment from his characters: no poet could understand and sympathize more with them, but they are never used as mouthpieces for their creator. He never thrusts himself into his work: the reader can only conjecture his personality from his choice of subject and manner of treatment. His magnanimity is shown by his entire lack of all condescension, scorn, or contempt for any human being. His poise as an author is shown by his freedom from all obsessions-such as mysticism, religion, sex, pessimism, or a special doctrine concerning art-which disfigure the work of many modern writers. But what makes probably the deepest impression on a student of Mr. Gibson's work is the delicate sensitiveness and purity of his thought and feeling-distinguishing characteristics of the best poets in all

ages.

GERALDINE P. DILLA.

Alabama Technical Institute and
College for Women.

The Red Rose married the mistletoe,
And the bridal-wreath was a wreath of snow,
And the bridal-veil was of white frost hoar,

And the Red Rose bloomed no more, no more, no more.

There was a lady loved a lord,

And she was blithe and bonny, oh!
But the fool was blind to his rich reward.
Sing hey-nonny, nonny, oh!

He sighed and wooed and wooed and sighed.
If wit could be bought with money, oh!
But he tarried so long he lost his bride.
Sing hey-nonny, nonny, oh!

WHAT IS TRUTH?

'What is truth?' said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.

Next to Bacon's stroke of genius in opening his Essays thus, I have long admired Pilate's ability-shall I say as judge or as conversationalist?-in not staying for an answer. How many

people are there in the world who can stop at the end of a conversation: I mean really stop at the end? It is so easy to drift along and let one thing suggest another until everyone is petrified with boredom, limp with ennui. It is easy, too, although it takes rather more will power, to end abruptly, leaving something unsaid a feeling of incompleteness, which has, to be sure, its charm; but while it avoids satiety, it does so at a good price. 'I could have said many more delightful things,' you imply; 'but I am afraid I have already become tedious'-'No! No! by no means' (the others fear lest their eyes have betrayed them)'but we shall continue this interesting talk another time'; and so on. Gentle sarcasms, polite ironies, ash-colored lies: the necessities of courteous unskilful intercourse.

But really to reach a conclusion and stop: that is almost to make your conversation a work of art. Pilate did it-once, at any rate. Perhaps it is an art that rulers have to learn. But we commoners rarely achieve it. In fiction, however, it is easy: one uses a blue pencil. Yet what realist was ever so bold as to write down a desultory conversation-and most real conversations are desultory as it is? Only the untrained writers, who do not count. Realism in fiction, one must understand, is not truth to life as it is, nor truth to life as the writer sees it; but an emphasis on certain facets of life, certain currents (usually undercurrents) which attract his attention. If realism is the contra of romance-it is rather the complement-it is not by any means a more accurate, more faithful, more trustworthy 'imitation' of life. The incidents it selects are more common, but not necessarily more probable. There are in the world, crime, sordidness, bestiality, ugliness; but there are also some virtue, some noble