(1) This poem is very much in the vatic mode, and it was precisely for that reason, Jacobs reminded us, that the poet came to despise it, refusing to include it in later collections of his verse.(2) The vatic ferocity of it all seems numbing and alien.(3) Critics come in vastly varying styles: from subtle, self-effacing, and sardonic, to oracular, vatic , apocalyptic, to plain damned intelligent.(4) It was a tradition of vatic utterance, such as that represented by Blake - the Blake of the prophetic books.
