Hesse is, of course, one of the most significant of 20th century novelists, and his poetry … is for the most part engaging enough; but it has little of the potency of his fiction. In a familiar modern way, poetry is content to be, self-consciously, a "minor" mode; Hesse is a skilfully lyrical, sometimes poignant poet, but in what one must confess is a fairly conventional manner…. [Intellectually] speaking, Hesse is rather second-rate; and whatever one might think of this as a judgement on his novels, it certainly seems an apt characterisation of his delicate, but somehow dreamy and depthless poetry…. (p. 74)