Verse translation should rank higher as an art than even the most skilful photography. It is perhaps most like making an engraving of a well-known building; the translator may not change the outlines or add anything extraneous, but he must re-create the beauty or majesty of his subject in a new medium. Some of the old-fashioned Nineteenth Century translations are like picture post-cards compared to the vital and delicate renderings that recent English masters have attained. As form is so much an essential of poetry, the test of verse translation should be very largely that applied to original work. I realize that this statement is in the nature of a challenge, but I had rather be condemned as an inferior poet than approved as a good copyist.
"Birdwood," Philadelphia.
