Page:Collected poems of Flecker.djvu/33

 in which voices call him "to white Ægean isles among the foam" and the "dreamy painted lands" of the East. In the same year he translated Propertius I, xx. His life-long love of Greek names is shown by his enunciation of them even then:


 * But Oreithyia's sons have left him now:
 * Hylas, most foolish boy, where goest thou?
 * He is going to the Hamadryades,
 * To them devoted I will tell you how.


 * There's a clear well beneath Arganthos' screes
 * Wherein Bithynian Naiads take their ease,
 * By leafage overarched, where apples hide
 * Whilst the dew kisses them on the unknown trees.

This poem is dated 1904. It is the year of the Glion stanzas, the sonnet on Francis Thompson, and (probably) the fragmentary "Ode on Shelley." It is the year, that is, when Flecker began to show marks of maturity. The translation, like a number of other early poems quoted above, has not been included in the present collection, as it is certain that Flecker would not have wished it. Just enough of his unpublished "Juvenilia " have been included to illustrate his development, and it may be alleged without rashness that those selected are the best of their respective periods.

Whatever may be said about the poems which follow, there are few which are not characteristic of the poet. His rigorous conception of his art and his fidelity to his own vision prevented many lapses, and he suppressed those which he did commit. One unrepresentative phrase xxix