IDEALLY speaking, there is no especially poetic range of subjects, and no especially poetic group of words with which to treat them. Indeed, the more traditionally poetical the subject and the words, the more difficult it is to do anything with them. The nymph, the swain, the faun, and the vernal groves are not any more or less legitimate themes of poetry than Motor Bicycle Trials, Girl Guides, or the Prohibition Question, the only difference being a practical one; the second category may be found unsuitable for the imaginative digestion because these words are still somehow uncooked; in the former case they are unsuitable because overcooked, rechauffÉ, tasteless. The cooking process is merely that of constant use. When a word or a phrase is universally adopted and can be used in conversation without any apologetic accentuation, or in a literary review without italics, inverted commas or capital letters, then it is ready for use in poetry.

As a convenient general rule, Mr. Lascelles Abercrombie has pointed out in his admirable pamphlet “Poetry and Contemporary Speech,” the poet will always be best advised to choose as the main basis of his diction the ordinary spoken language of his day; the reason being that words grow richer by daily use and take on subtle associations which the artificially bred words of literary or technical application cannot acquire with such readiness; the former have therefore greater poetic possibilities in juxtaposition.

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An objection will be raised to the term “universal” as applied to the audience for poetry; it is a limited universality when one comes to consider it. Most wise poets intend their work only for those who speak the same language as themselves, who have a “mental age” not below normal, and who, if they don’t perhaps understand all the allusions in a poem, will know at any rate where to go to look them up in a work of reference.