spirits, Poets and Poetry                           17

the poetry of all his books published during the second and most
fruitful period of his active life—a process which is of peculiar
interest to the student either of psychical phenomena or of psy¬
chology. Henry W. Wells writes: "No part of these works was
committed to writing until inscribed with great flowing script in
pencil by the hand of a woman over whose wrist the poet held
his fingers. There was no real question as to what hand directed
the pencil. But Jones felt that all such writing was in some way
instantaneously bestowed upon him, not composed in the usual
manner, either through reason or intuition. A Muse intervened.
Occasionally the Muse even used foreign tongues, with which
the poet denied acquaintance. The mind of the Muse was certainly
not that of the medium, who was fitted for her modest role in
part by her incontestable neutrality. The actual Muse was, in
Jones's eye, more nearly an ever nameless spirit somewhere in
the angelic hierarchies.'" In this fashion he would dash off a sonnet
or a prose passage at a high speed. On at least two occasions he
is said to have composed Petrarchian sonnets in 90 seconds. Some¬
times the verse poured forth after he had "asked for" a given
sonnet, setting its general theme.

His sonnet on Blake is typical of his work in this verse form:

Upon the edges of the trembling sea

He walks with patriarchs and Druid kings.
And from the far horizon, white with wings.

Flames Los the terrible, fierce-browed and free;

Or where the purple headlands slope to lee.
He hears the seraphs by their silver springs
Murmur of bright unutterable things,

Of worlds destroyed that fairer worlds may be.

And ever at his side a shadow grows.

From leaves that bud and blossom at his feet
To stars beyond the crystal's widest span:
Sap of the suns! breath of the morning rose!
Tiger and lamb within that shadow meet—
The Shape of God who is the Eternal Man.

* "The Visions of Thomas S. Jones," Review of Religion, March, 1953.