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Rh The passages already quoted prove that, as a poet, he is disinclined to think effort worth while, and easily consents to imperfections characteristic of that phase of skill which distinguishes play from a profession. Colin Clout is more gentlemanly than Paradise Lost, even though it be less worthy of man.

Yet, as good old Skelton pled:

A just claim; besides there is something ideal about absence of strain; greatness has in Milton undoubtedly taken itself a shade too seriously. However, in the end one perhaps likes our humorist best when he is gravest.

1915

watched the Season passing slow, so slow,

In fields between La Bassée and Bethune;

Primroses and the first warm day of Spring,

Red poppy floods of June, 42