THE YEAR'S AT THE SPRING
AN ANTHOLOGY OF RECENT POETRY
COMPILED BY L.D'O. WALTERS
ILLUSTRATED BY HARRY CLARKE
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HAROLD MONRO
BRENTANO'S
FIFTH AVENUE & 27TH STREET NEW YORK
1920
INTRODUCTION
The best poetry is always about the earth itself and all the strangeand lovely things that compose and inhabit it. When a 'great poet'sets himself the task of some 'big theme' he needs only to hold, asit were, a magnifying glass to the earth. We who are born and livehere like very much to imagine other worlds, and we have even mentallyconstructed such another in which to exist after dying on this one; butwe were careful to make it a glorified version of our own earth, witheverything we most love here intensified and improved to the utmoststretch of human imagination.
To each man his 'best poetry' is that which he is able most to enjoy.The first object of poetry is to give pleasure. Pleasure is various,but it cannot exist where the emotions or the imagination have notbeen powerfully stirred. Whether it be called sensual or intellectual,pleasure cannot be willed. It is impossible to feel happy because onewants to feel happy,[Pg 6] or sad because one wishes to feel sad. But suchbodily or mental conditions may be induced from outside through anatural agency such as poetry, or music.
Now those dreary people who would maintain that poetry should deal(some say exclusively) with what they call 'big themes,' or 'thelarger life', are merely advocating more use of the magnifying glassas against intensive cultivation of the natural eye. The poet isessentially he who examines carefully, and learns to know fully, everydetail of common life. He seeks to name in a variety of manners, andto define, the objects about him, to compare them with other objects,near or remote, and to find, for the mere sake of enjoyment, wonderfulvarieties of description and comparison. When he imagines better placesthan his earth, or invents gods, the impersonation and combination ofthe fortunate qualities in man, he is then using the magnifying glasswith talent, occasionally with rare genius. But the poet who seeks,without genius, to magnify is simply a fool who sees everything toobig, and boasts, in the loudest voice he can raise, of his diseasedeyesight.
One of the peculiarities, or perhaps rather the essential quality, ofthe lyrical poetry of to-day is a minute concentration on the objectsimmediately near it and an anxious carefulness to describe these inthe most appropriate and satisfactory terms. Thus it is often accusedof a neglect to sublimate the emotions, and many critics have been atpains to suggest that this affection for the nearest and that careful[Pg 7]description of natural events denotes a smallness of mental range. Beit no