Cambridge Poets 1900–1913

INTRODUCTION . | SHALL take it to be conceded , at this time of day, 1 not only that good poetry is worth writing , but that our language has a capacity and our nation a rather special aptitude for it : and these admissions — if the reader will be good enough to make them before starting upon the poems here collected —will excuse together the authors, the anthologist, and the contributor of this short ' Introduction .' For if good poetry be worth writing , the attempt to write it must be worth making : nor does it need a Socratic dialogue to prove that the more numerous they are who engage in the attempt the fairer will be the prospect of somebody 's succeeding . Derision of minor verse , serio -comic terror of poetasters , prophesy of their multiplying and devouring us in a flood, disparage ment of the poetic ambition in any stage short of acclaimed success — all these have ever belonged to the witling 's stock -in -trade , and I know no part of it more cheaply come by. You will find it very nobly and disdainfully assigned its proper value in the opening page or two of Dryden 's famous Essay of Dramatic Poesy . In that little masterpiece , Dryden deliberately lays his scene , choosing an occasion which , more than any in his time , might seem to justify the vulgar con tempt of poetry as a mere frill and accessory upon human affairs : ' It was that memorable day ( he says ), in the first summer of the late war , when our navy engaged the Dutch : a day wherein the two most mighty and best