xiv
INTRODUCTION .
allowing
that my enthusiasm
keeps remarkably
green
for
its
age
,
grow
apt
to
tell me that when
it
comes
to
particular poets
—
or
at
any rate
,
when
it
comes
to
their
work
,
it
discriminates less well than
of
yore
:
and
I
make
no
doubt they are right
.
Since
,
right
or
wrong
,
they
are
certain
to
scan
this
book
more
closely
,
not
to
say
jealously
,
than
the
ordinary
disinterested
reader
,
I
decline
taking
the
risk
of
detailed
praise
.
A
small word
of
protest will
be
safer
.
I
note
-
and
may
summon
almost
every
page
of
the
book
for
evidence
that
the
lyrical
form
nowadays
dominates
all others
;
that
even
in
Mr
.
Hardy
's
Dynasts
-
yes
,
and
even
in
Mr
.
Doughty
's
great
epic
-
other
forms
are
perpetually
haunted
and
worried
,
if
not actually
tyrannised
over
,
by
the lyrical
.
Indeed
a
young
poet
gravely
informed
me
,
the
other
day
,
that
the
lyric
held
the
whole
future
of
poesy
—
every
other
form
being
dead
;
nor
was
he
abashed
on
being
reminded
of
the
Scottish
farmer
's
prayer
—
"
O
Lord
,
take
everything
from
everybody
else
,
and
give
it
ALL
to
me
!”
I
note further that
as
a
part
of
this tendency
(
or,
at
all
events
,
concurrently
)
the Lyric
goes
on
to
remove
itself more and more
from
the music
of
its
origin
,
to
ignore the accompaniment
of
song
and
instrument
,
to
become
reflective
,
“
subjective
'
and
,
when
emotional
,
intent
on
its
own
emotions
rather than
on
its
auditors
'.
Now
this tendency
seems
to
me
,
for several reasons
,
a
mistaken
one
;
but
chiefly
for
this
,
that
it
leaves
the
poet
's
business
half done
.
It
is
not enough
that he
is
a
man more sensitive than
his fellows
,
that
he
guesses
at
universal secrets
unguessed
by
them
,
that his
gift
pro