The Poetry of the Future.

Mr. Ernest Rhys, in his address of last night, said that the essential part of the new poetry was its spirit, not its metre. Each age is different from all those that preceded it, and is filled with new thoughts, which need a new poetry for their expression. Poets must not shut themselves up away from the world, but must move in the heart of affairs; they must share in the life-blood of the general heart in order to express the whole spirit and burden of their times. The poets of the Elizabethan age took the common idioms and jokes of the people and worked them into forms of enduring beauty, and why should their example not be followed to-day? The present situation is critical. Education tends to mere materiality, and here lies the great danger of our times. What are our young poets doing to resist this tendency, and how are they advancing the cause of the ideal? In London they do mere dilettante work; they are wedded to sonnets, triolets and rondeaus. They spend their time in a mere elaboration of saying nothing, instead of appealing to the people. William Morris has recently entered upon the true task of the poet. He sees that as life is not ideal there is all the more need and opening for poetry. Walt Whitman has also tried to face this nineteenth century world boldly; and, whatever we may think of his literary style, his spirit is genuine. It is said that the modern spirit is hostile to art and that the tyranny of science drives poetry out of existence. But poetry is based on realism, and the poet should take the cold facts of science and humanize them. Human sentiment should be substituted for the critical verse now in vogue. The human mind has in this century again burst its bonds, as it did just before the Renaissance. It cannot be possible that the "almighty dollar" is to be the only issue from this wonderful new world. Positive thought must be substituted for negative, and it may be that a new poetic energy will rise from among the hot spirits of the Socialists. The gospel of love extended to embrace the happiness of the whole world is the hope and salvation of the future.