Page:Some soldier poets.djvu/15

Rh form. At least it is safest to think of it as impersonal until we can follow it out of one form into another: at present it disappears and reappears, like but not necessarily the same. I treat of poets, not of persons. Poetry is a form of vitality due to the fact that language can be filled with significance in such a way as to catch the light and appear transformed in texture and value. The poet's words are mere words, nevertheless; we all use and misuse them. His success is limited by their defects, just as it has always been seconded by the energy with which uncountable minds have charged them. So the poem has a distinct character, a distinct life, and a distinct fate, fuller than the poet's in some respects, narrower in others. It too is a bubble into which life passes through the artist as through a pipe often cracked, choked or faulty; besides the materials he works with, the soap is not all good, there may be too much or too little water, and at last when the perfect globe sails away nobody happens to be looking. The game is one of many hazards. Theorists insist that only those bubbles that sport a certain blue or green or purple are true art. But no dye, no pigment helps; and a more generously endowed faculty discovers that a change in the angle of regard can awaken any of the seven hues on all that float the air; for not subject and sentiment but form and texture import; emotions and themes are only tabooed by prejudice. The rainbow admiration even hovers over the bowl of suds, and any bubble round enough might be induced to travel alone if chivied about with a conviction equal to that of the moment's fashion. History is draughty, capriciously so, and tomorrow will not correct all the mistakes of to-day. Chance often defeats fine work while it treasures trash. These poets have been chosen at random out of the hundreds that are launched by the Press. I cannot pretend to any assurance that I have chosen the largest or the most prosperous voyagers. Twenty years ago the public gave Rh