Page:Some soldier poets.djvu/92

Rh single life may have uttered what millions of completed lives have stammered over unintelligibly; this thought begets that agony of fondness that would entrust the brief perfection of young persons to stone or metal rather than leave it to fading flesh. Elroy Flecker, a young poet recently dead, rivals the beautiful lines quoted above with a similar invention:

This vivid estimation of human beauty is proof of a deep well of poetic power.

So Plato sang, and still, in spite of astronomy; the worth of this soul-thrilled comeliness can counterbalance the magnitude of stellar regions and remove all terror from the unclouded night. So great a power has human beauty when we are alone with ourselves; and yet few 88