well borne out by the book itself, which shows a current of consistent improvement from 1905 to 1917.
One of the most significant signs of this improvement seems to me to be the charming Song, which was written sometime in 1917:
"Eyes like flowers and falling hair
Seldom seen nor ever long,
Then I did not know you were
Destined subject for a song:
Sharing your unconsciousness
Of your double loveliness,
Unaware how fair you were,
Peaceful eyes and shadowy hair.
"Only, now your beauty falls
Sweetly on some other place,
Lonely reverie recalls
More than anything your face;
Any idle hour may find
Stealing on my captured mind,
Faintly merging from the air,
Eyes like flowers and falling hair."
I do not suggest that this piece is in itself of vast importance or by any means the best thing that Mr. Squire has written. But compare it with what he was writing in 1912:
"Than farthest stars more distant,
A mile more,
A mile more,
A voice cries on insistent:
'You may smile more if you will;
"'You may sing too and spring too;
But numb at last
And dumb at last,
Whatever port you cling to,
You must come at last to a hill.
