Page:Men of Letters, Scott, 1916.djvu/220

194 194 THE YELLOW PATCH these again is a rich deposit of uncollected criticism, of miscellaneous prose work, and of two volumes (A Mainsail Haul and A Tarpaulin Muster), which use prose more deliberately, with a self-conscious art — volumes whose contents really were, literally, " essays." And lastly there is the little lode of early verse. This early verse is very fascinating. Exhumed now, a trifle tarnished, it is like a cache of buried treasure : the two little volumes are caskets full of trinkets made of trinkets, a little hoard of coins and gems, doubloons and precious stones, gathered on clandestine raids and then cunningly re-set. Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus, Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores, With a cargo of diamonds, Emeralds, amethysts, Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores. Clandestine — because, buried with them, is a solemn declaration that the purpose of the store was purely altruistic — an italicized, insistent "Consecration." Not of the princes and prelates with periwigged charioteers Riding triumphantly laurelled to lap the fat of the years — Rather the scorned — the rejected — the men hemrned in with the spears. . . . The sailor, the stoker of steamers, the man with the clout. The chantyman bent at the halliards putting a tune to the shout. The drowsy man at the wheel and the tired look-out. Of these shall my songs be fashioned, my tales be told. Amen. Such a reckless admission of a close acquaintance with Mr. Kipling might seem to argue sincerity, yet it becomes pretty plain, as you turn the verses over, that it was the vividness of the violence that really