SOURCE: “Words, Words, Words,” in The Ever-Present Past, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1964, pp. 151-58.

In the following essay, originally published in the November 19, 1955, edition of the Saturday Review, Hamilton reflects upon Ingelow's influence on modern poets, particularly Dylan Thomas (1914-1953).

Nearly one hundred years ago a novelist and a poet, quite forgotten now but highly esteemed in her own day, whose name was Jean Ingelow, wrote:

Amorphous masses cooing to a monk; Some fine old crusty problems very drunk; A pert parabola flirting with a don, And two Greek grammars with their war paint on. A lame black beetle singing to a fish; A squinting planet in a gravy-dish. 

There were other lines equally striking which, unfortunately, I have forgotten (the book they appeared in is long since out of print), but the importance of even the few I can quote must be instantly apparent to all...