His first volume, "Earth Triumphant," proved that he was the possessor of an instrument. It is true that he played on this instrument with a dangerous facility. For in him the sense of metrical rhythm and the answering recall of rhyme was given from the very first. Other poets have to enter the great vague world of thought that beckons them, by hacking and hewing their way through a forest of experimental forms-a process which is calculated to kill off all but the stoutest. There was nothing of this in Aiken. He was master of a smooth limpid flow of verse narrative from the beginning. He did not have to learn and unlearn his technique. It was an authentic gift. Such a poet is rare enough even in England, still rarer in America.