77
of the English language in spreading over the
earth fascinated my boyish imagination ; and the
time came when I delighted to feel myself growing
in Shakespeare's England."
In his boyhood and even as a young man,
it appears, he was constantly receiving inspi-
ration from some of his favourite poets ; and,
as he himself has said, his earliest verse may be
regarded as exercise and self-preparation. From
a collection of his poems, which I have in my pos-
session, I can trace the directions in which his
tastes were moving. I believe some of his first
verses were written during his Cambridge days
when he was in his i8th year. There is one poem
called A Confession (1889-1936), which I regard
as a key to the main thoughts and feelings indi-
cated in his Nature poems : Communion with
Nature in solitude. The influence of Words-
worth was then operating on his mind. And I
have seen another poem of a different kind, be-
longing to the first period. It is called Sappho
and Aphrodite and belongs to 1894. According to
him, it was " no better than a mere exercise in
Hellenistic feeling." In the earlier years the
classical influence was felt as a fresh stimulus ;
and amongst poems belonging to that period I
have come across translations of some of the
odes of HoraŁ^ read at Cambridge in 1887-1888.
As a versejranslator he had already acquired con-
siderable felicity of expression.
It is interesting to compare the elaborate style
and alien feelings and sentiments expressed in