Page:Poetry, a magazine of verse, Volume 7 (October 1915-March 1916).djvu/389



R. JOHN MASEFIELD'S lecture on English Poetry was to me both stimulating and suggestive. The phases of English poetry he touched upon revealed the personal quality of the poet himself, that union of strength and gentleness, of harshness and beauty, which he identified with the English climate and temperament.

In speaking of the beginnings of English poetry, Mr. Masefield said that it was made by a rude war-faring people for the entertainment of men-at-arms, or for men at the monks' tables; that at the time of "the new learning" the poet's audience became divided into two classes, the lettered and the unlettered; and that in some sort the two classes had persisted until today. As he read from the poetry of Robert of Gloucester, from Chaucer, from John Davies, from Gray, and as he spoke of Wordsworth and Blake as modern poets who had striven to speak directly to the soul of man, I began to feel how conscientiously Mr. Masefield had himself striven to bridge the gulf that has separated poetry from the people. His choice was significant of his personal vision; he did not mention Burns, who was surely a popular poet; he mentioned Tennyson as appealing to that middle class which has perhaps lost feeling through education; and he spoke of Browning and Swinburne as men who rebelled against the complacent acceptance of this class, but who drew