The format of Mr Hodgson's published work is almost as interesting as the poetry itself—and that is saying a good deal. For all of his poetry that matters (there is an earlier, experimental volume which is not notable) has been issued during the past two or three years in the form of chapbook and broadside.

It was a new publishing venture, quietly launched At the Sign of Flying Fame, and piloted now through the rapids of a larger success by the Poetry Bookshop. In a sense, of course, it is not a new thing at all, but a revival of the means by which ballad and romance were conveyed into the hands of the people a couple of centuries ago. Yet it is no imitation of a quaint style for the sake of its picturesqueness, nor the haphazard choice of a vehicle unsuited either to the author or his public, nor a mere bid for popular favour.

The peculiar interest of the revival lies in the fact that it is part of the larger movement, the renascent spirit of poetry which has been visibly stirring the face of the waters in these past few years. The reappearance of the chapbook synchronized with that, and is closely related with it. For it is found to be as well fitted to the form and the content of the newest poetry as it is suited to the need of the newest audience. On the one hand it brings to the freshly awakened public a book which is cheap enough to acquire and small enough readily to become a familiar possession of the mind. On the other hand, it is suited perfectly to the simple themes and metrical effects of the work hitherto published in this form; and is designed only to include small poems of unquestioned excellence. Here may be perceived the more important factors which go to the formation of literary taste; and while one would estimate that the educational value of these little books is therefore high, aptly meeting the need of the novice in poetry, it is clear that the discriminating mind also is likely to find them satisfying.

Mr Hodgson's work, then, will be found in four chapbooks and a thin sheaf of broadsides. The chapbooks are small and slim, and could all be picked up between the thumb and finger of one hand. They are wrapped in cheery yellow and decorated with impressionistic sketches which, nine times out of ten, perhaps, really help the illusion that the poet is creating. The broadsides—there are about a dozen of them—are long loose sheets, each containing a single poem similarly decorated.

The sum of the work is thus quite small. Perhaps there are not more than five-and-twenty pieces altogether, none very long, and amongst them an occasional miniature of a single stanza. Probably the format in which the author has chosen to appear has had an effect in restricting his production. That would be a possible result of the vigorous selection exercised and the limits imposed in space and style. But there are signs that he would not have been in any case a ready writer—the sense these lyrics convey of having waited on inspiration until the veritable moment shone, finding thought and feeling, imagination and technique, ripe to express it. And by those very signs watchers knew and acclaimed this author for a poet, despite the slender bulk of his accomplishment, long before the Royal Society of Literature had awarded to his work the Polignac prize.

The two poems which gained the prize are "The Bull" and "The Song of Honour." Each occupies a whole chapbook to itself, and therefore must be accounted, for this poet, of considerable length. They are, indeed, the most important of his poems. And if one does not immediately add that they are also the most beautiful and the most charming, the reason is something more than an aversion from dogma and the superlative mood. For the artistic level of all this work is high, and it would be difficult, on a critical method, to single out the finest piece. The decision would be susceptible, even more than poetical judgments usually are, to mood and individual bias. One person, inclining to the smaller, gem-like forms of verse, will find pieces by Mr Hodgson to flatter his fancy. This poet has, indeed, a gift of concentrated expression, before which one is compelled to pause. There are tiny lyrics here which comprise immensities. The facile imp that lurks round every corner for the poor trader in words whispers 'epigram' as we read "Stupidity Street" or "The Mystery" or "Reason has Moons." But is the specific quality of these delicate creations really epigrammatic? No, it would appear to be something more gracious and more subtly blent with emotion; having implications that lead beyond the region of stark thought, and an impulse far other than to sharpen a sting. "Stupidity Street" is an example:

Analysis of that will discover an anatomy complete enough to those who enjoy that kind of dissection. There are bones of logic and organic heat sufficient of themselves for wonder how the thing can be done in so small a compass. And the strong simple words, which articulate the idea so exactly, confirm the impression of something rounded and complete; as though final expression had been reached and nothing remained behind. But as a fact there is much behind. One sees this perhaps a little more clearly in "The Mystery":

Again the idea has been crystallized so cleanly out of the poetic matrix that one sees at first only its sharp, bright outline. Perhaps to the analyst it would yield nothing more. But the simpler mind will surely feel, no matter how dimly, the presence of all the imaginings out of which it sprang, a small synthesis of the universe.

Here we touch the main feature of this poet's gift—his power to visualize, to make almost tangible, a poetic conception. So consummate is this power that it dominates other qualities and might almost cheat us into thinking that they did not exist. Thus we might not suspect this transparent verse of reflective depths; and of course, it is not intellectual poetry, specifically so-called. Yet reflection is implied everywhere; and occasionally it is a pure abstraction which gets itself embodied. The poem called "Time" illustrates this. In its opening line—"Time, you old Gipsy-man"—the idea swings into life in a figure which gains energy with every line. One positively sees this restless old man who has driven his caravan from end to end of the world and who cannot be persuaded to stay for bribe or entreaty. And it would be possible quite to forget the underlying thought did not the gravity of it peep between the incisive strokes of the third stanza.

So it is too with this poet's imagination. It deals perpetually with concrete imagery—as for instance when it pictures Eve:

or presents her, when the serpent is softly calling her name, as

Moreover, the poet does not in the least mind winging his fancy in a homely phrase. He is not afraid of an idiomatic touch, nor of pithy, vigorous words. His conception is vivid enough to bear rigorous treatment; and in the same poem, "Eve," the serpent is found plotting the fall of humanity in these terms:

And when his wiles have been successful, Eve's feathered comrades, Titmouse and Jenny Wren, make an indignant 'clatter':

That is the nearest approach to fantasy which will be found in this poetry. There is nothing subtle or whimsical here: no half-lights or neutral tones or hints of meaning. This genius cannot fulfil itself in an 'airy nothing.' The imaginative power is too firmly controlled by a sense of fact to admit the bizarre and incredible; yet there can be no doubt of its creative force when one turns for a moment to either of the prize poems, and particularly to "The Bull." It would be hard to name a finer specimen of verse in which imagination, high and sustained, is seen to be operating through a purely sensuous medium. That is to say, moving in a region of fact, accurately observing and recording the phenomena of a real world, there is yet achieved an imaginative creation of great power—a bit of all-but-perfect art. Quotation will not serve to illustrate this, since the poem is an organic whole and a principal element of its perfection is its unity. One could, however, demonstrate over again from almost any line the poet's instinct for reality: as for example in the truth, quiet but unflinching, of his presentment of the cruelty inherent in his theme. The passages are almost too painful taken out of their context; and there may be some for whom they will rob the poem of complete beauty. But the same instinct may be observed visualizing, in strong light and rich colour and incisive movement, the teeming tropical world in which the old bull stands, sick, unkinged and left to die.

This poem is indeed very characteristic of its author's method. One perceives the thought behind (apart, of course, from the mental process of actual composition); and one realizes the magnitude of it. But again it is implicit only, and reflection on 'the flesh that dies,' on greatness fallen and worth contemned, hardly wins a couple of lines of direct expression.

In "The Song of Honour" it would seem for the moment as if all that were reversed. This poem is the re-creation of a spiritual experience, a hymn of adoration. It is entirely subjective in conception, and is strangely different therefore from the cool objectivity of "The Bull" or "Eve" or "Time." In them the poet is working so detachedly that there is even room for the play of gentle humour now and then. He is working with delight, indeed, and emotion warm enough, but with a joy that is wholly artistic, caring much more for the thing that he is making than for any single element of it. But in "The Song of Honour" it is evident that he cares immensely for his theme; and hence arise an ardour and intensity which are not present in the other poems. Moreover, the work is the interpretation of a vision, which would seem to imply a mystical quality only latent hitherto; and there is a rapture of utterance which is not found elsewhere.

The apparent contrast has no reality however. It is possible to catch, though in subtle inflexions it is true, an undertone which runs below even the simplest and clearest of these lyrics. No doubt it is as quiet, as subdued, as it well could be—this soft, complex harmony flowing beneath the ringing measure. But one can distinguish a note here and a phrase there which point directly to the dominant theme of "The Song of Honour." There is a hint of it, for example, in "The Mystery," where the soul is imagined as standing, reverent but without fear, within the closed circle of the unknown, and joyfully content to accept as the pledge and symbol of that which it is unable to comprehend, the beauty of the material world. One may see in that a familiar attitude of the modern mind; the perception that there is a mystery, which somehow perpetually eludes the creeds and philosophies, but which seems to be attaining to gradual revelation and fulfilment in actual existence. A vision of the unity of that existence was the inspiration of this greater poem: a realization, momentary but dazzling, of the magnificence of being: of its joy, of its continuity, of the progression of life through countless forms of that which we call matter to an ultimate goal of supreme glory.

I do not say that any thesis, in those or kindred terms, was the origin of this Song. I feel quite sure that it had no basis so abstract. It was born in a mood of exaltation, kindled perhaps by such an instant of flaming super-consciousness as may be observed in the spiritual experience of other contemporary poets. The moment of its inception is recorded in the opening of the poem:

Silence fell upon the landscape as darkness came and the stars shone out.

So true is the poet to his impulse towards clarity and the concrete, so unerringly does he select the strong, familiar word with all its meaning clear on the face of it, that it is possible to regard the Song simply as a religious poem—a hymn of adoration to a Supreme Being:

Pure religion the poem is, but its implications are broader than any creed. And, define it as we may, it remains suggestive of the most vital current of modern thought. For it takes its stand upon the solid earth, embraces reality and perceives in the material world itself that which is urging joyfully toward some manifestation of spiritual splendour. Thus the poet hears the Song rising from the very stocks and stones:

The pÆan is audible to him, too, from lowly creatures in whom life has not yet grown conscious, from the tiniest forms of being, from the most transient of physical phenomena.

But it is in humanity that the Song attains its fullest and noblest harmony. Out of the stuff of actual human life the spiritual essence is distilled, making the wraiths of a mystical imagination poor and pale by comparison.

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