Part 3

I am well aware that the attitude of the Gentle Reader seems to many strenuous persons to be unworthy of our industrial civilization. These persons insist that we shall make hard work of our poetry, if for no other reason than to preserve our self-respect. Here as elsewhere they insist upon the stern law that if a man will not labor neither shall he eat. Even the poems of an earlier and simpler age which any child can understand must be invested with some artificial difficulty. The learned guardians of these treasures insist that they cannot be appreciated unless there has been much preliminary wrestling with a "critical apparatus," and much delving among "original sources." This is the same principle that makes the prudent householder provide a sharp saw and a sufficient pile of cord wood as a test to be applied to the stranger who asks for a breakfast. There is much academic disapproval of one who in defiance of all law insists on enjoying poetry after his own "undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or ratherest unconfirmed fashion." I, however, so thoroughly sympathize with the Gentle Reader that I desire to present his point of view.

To understand poetry is a vain ambition. That which we fully understand is the part that is not poetry. It is that which passes our understanding which has the secret in itself. There is an incommunicable grace that defies all attempts at analysis. Poetry is like music; it is fitted, not to define an idea or to describe a fact, but to voice a mood. The mood may be the mood of a very simple person,--the mood of a shepherd watching his flocks, or of a peasant in the fields; or, on the other hand, it may be the mood of a philosopher whose mind has been engrossed with the most subtle problems of existence. But in each case the mood, by some suggestion, must be communicated to us. Thoughts and facts must be transfigured; they must come to us as through some finer medium. As we are told that we must experience religion before we know what religion is, so we must experience poetry. The poet is the enchanter, and we are the willing victims of his spells:--

"Would'st thou see A man i' th' clouds and hear him speak to thee? Would'st thou be in a dream and yet not sleep? Or would'st thou in a moment laugh and weep? Wouldest thou lose thyself and catch no harm? And find thyself again without a charm?

* * * * * O then come hither And lay my book, thy head and heart together."

Only the reader who yields to the charm can dream the dream. The poet may weave his story of the most common stuff, but "there's magic in the web of it." If we are conscious of this magical power, we forgive the lack of everything else. The poet may be as ignorant as Aladdin himself, but he has a strange power over our imaginations. At his word they obey, traversing continents, building palaces, painting pictures. They say, "We are ready to obey as thy slaves, and the slaves of all that have that lamp in their hands,--we and the other slaves of the lamp."

This is the characteristic of the poet's power. He does not construct a work of the imagination,--he makes our imaginations do that. That is why the fine passages of elaborate description in verse are usually failures. The verse-maker describes accurately and at length. The poet speaks a word, and Presto! change! We are transported into a new land, and our eyes are "baptized into the grace and privilege of seeing." Many have taken in hand to write descriptions of spring; and some few painstaking persons have nerved themselves to read what has been written. I turn to the prologue of the "Canterbury Tales;" it is not about spring, it is spring, and I am among those who long to go upon a pilgrimage. A description of a jungle is an impertinence to one who has come under the spell of William Blake's

"Tiger! tiger! burning bright In the forest of the night."

Those fierce eyes glowing there in the darkness sufficiently illuminate the scene. Immediately it is midsummer, and we feel all its delicious languor when Browning's David sings of

"The sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well."

The first essential to the enjoyment of poetry is leisure. The demon Hurry is the tempter, and knowledge is the forbidden fruit in the poet's paradise. To enjoy poetry, you must renounce not only your easily besetting sins, but your easily besetting virtues as well. You must not be industrious, or argumentative, or conscientious, or strenuous. I do not mean that you must be a person of unlimited leisure and without visible means of support. I have known some very conscientious students of literature who, when off duty, found time to enjoy poetry. I mean that if you have only half an hour for poetry, for that half hour you must be in a leisurely frame of mind.

The poet differs from the novelist in that he requires us to rest from our labors. The ordinary novel is easy reading, because it takes us as we are, in the midst of our hurry. The mind has been going at express speed all the day; what the novelist does is to turn the switch, and off we go on another track. The steam is up, and the wheels go around just the same. The great thing is still action, and we eagerly turn the pages to see what is going to happen next,--unless we are reading some of our modern realistic studies of character. Even then we are lured on by the expectation that, at the last moment, something may happen. But when we turn to the poets, we are in the land of the lotus-eaters. The atmosphere is that of a perfect day,

"Whereon it is enough for me Not to be doing, but to be."

Into this land our daily cares cannot follow us. It is an

"enchanted land, we know not where, But lovely as a landscape in a dream."

Once in this enchanted country, haste seems foolish. Why should we toil on as if we were walking for a wager? It is as if one had the privilege of joining Izaak Walton as he loiters in the cool shade of a sweet honeysuckle hedge, and should churlishly trudge on along the dusty highway rather than accept the gentle angler's invitation: "Pray, let us rest ourselves in this sweet, shady arbor of jessamine and myrtle; and I will requite you with a bottle of sack, and when you have pledged me, I will repeat the verses I promised you." One may, as a matter of strict conscience, be both a pedestrian and a prohibitionist, and yet not find it in his heart to decline such an invitation.

The poets who delight us with their verses are not always serious-minded persons with an important thought to communicate. When I read,

"In Xanadu did Kublai Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree,"

I am not a bit wiser than I was before, but I am a great deal happier; although I have not the slightest idea where Xanadu was, and only the vaguest notion of Kublai Khan.

There are poems whose charm lies in their illusiveness. Fancy any one trying to explain Rossetti's "Blessed Damozel." Yet when the mood is on us we see her as she leans

"From the gold bar of Heaven: Her eyes were deeper than the depth Of waters stilled at even; She had three lilies in her hand And the stars in her hair were seven."

We look over the mystic ramparts and are dimly conscious that

"the souls mounting up to God Went by her like thin flames."

This is not astronomy nor theology, nor any of the things we know all about--it is only poetry.

Let no one trouble me by attempting to elucidate "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came." I do not care for a Baedeker. I prefer to lose my way. I love the darkness rather than light. I do not care for a topographical chart of the hills that

"like giants at a hunting lay, Chin upon hand."

The mood in which we enjoy such poetry is that described in Emerson's "Forerunners."

"Long I followed happy guides, I could never reach their sides.

* * * * *

But no speed of mine avails To hunt upon their shining trails.

* * * * *

On eastern hills I see their smokes, Mixed with mist by distant lochs. I met many travelers Who the road had surely kept: They saw not my fine revelers."

If our thoughts make haste to join these "fine revelers," rejoicing in the sense of freedom and mystery, delighting in the mist and the wind, careless of attaining so that we may follow the shining trails, all is well.

As there are poems which are not meant to be understood, so there are poems that are not meant to be read; that is, to be read through. There is Keats's "Endymion," for instance. I have never been able to get on with it. Yet it is delightful,--that is the very reason why I do not care to get on with it. Wherever I begin, I feel that I might as well stay where I am. It is a sweet wilderness into which the reader is introduced.

"Paths there were many, Winding through palmy fern and rushes fenny And ivy banks; all leading pleasantly To a wide lawn... Who could tell The freshness of the space of heaven above, Edged round with dark tree-tops?--through which a dove Would often beat its wings, and often, too, A little cloud would move across the blue."

We are brought into the very midst of this pleasantness. Deep in the wood we see fair faces and garments white. We see the shepherds coming to the woodland altar.

"A crowd of shepherds with as sunburnt looks As may be read of in Arcadian books; Such as sat list'ning round Apollo's pipe When the great deity, for earth too ripe, Let his divinity o'erflowing die In music, through the vales of Thessaly."

We see the venerable priest pouring out the sweet-scented wine, and then we see the young Endymion himself:--

"He seemed To common lookers-on like one who dreamed Of idleness in groves Elysian."

What happened next? What did Endymion do? Really, I do not know. It is so much pleasanter, at this point, to close the book, and dream "of idleness in groves Elysian." The chances are that when one turns to the poem again he will not begin where he left off, but at the beginning, and read as if he had never read it before; or rather, with more enjoyment because he has read it so many times:--

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing."

Shelley describes a mood such as Keats brings to us:--

"My spirit like a charmèd bark doth swim Upon the liquid waves of thy sweet singing Far away into regions dim Of rapture, as a boat with swift sails winging Its way adown some many-winding river."

He who finds himself afloat upon the "many-winding river" throws aside the laboring oar. It is enough to float on,--he cares not whither.

What greater pleasure is there than in the "Idylls of the King" provided we do not study them, but dream them. We must enter into the poet's own mood:--

"I seemed To sail with Arthur under looming shores, Point after point, till on to dawn, when dreams Begin to feel the truth and stir of day."

It is good to be there, in that far-off time, good to come to Camelot:--

"Built by old kings, age after age, So strange and rich and dim."

All we see of kings, and magicians, and ladies, and knights is "strange and rich and dim." Over everything is a luminous haze. There are

"hollow tramplings up and down, And muffled voices heard, and shadows past."

There is the flashing of swords, the weaving of spells, the seeing of visions. All these things become real to us; not simply the stainless king and the sinful queen, the prowess of Lancelot and the love of Elaine, but the magic of Merlin and the sorceries of Vivien, with her charms

"Of woven paces and of waving hands."

And we must stand at last with King Arthur on the shore of the mystic sea, and see the barge come slowly with the three queens, "black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream;" and hear across the water a cry,

"As it were one voice, an agony Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills All night in a waste land, where no one comes, Or hath come, since the making of the world."

But what good is there in all this? Why waste time on idle dreams? We hear Walt Whitman's challenge to romantic poetry:--

"Arthur vanished with all his knights, Merlin and Lancelot and Galahad, all gone, dissolved utterly like an exhalation; Embroidered, dazzling, foreign world, with all its gorgeous legends, myths, Its kings and castles proud, its priests and warlike lords and courtly dames, Passed to its charnel vault, coffined with crown and armor on, Blazoned with Shakspere's purple page And dirged by Tennyson's sweet sad rhyme."

Away with the old romance! Make room for the modern bard, who is

"Bluffed not a bit by drain-pipes, gasometers, and artificial fertilizers."

The Gentle Reader, also, is not to be bluffed by any useful things, however unpleasant they may be, but he winces a little as he reads that the "far superber themes for poets and for art" include the teaching by the poet of how

"To use the hammer and the saw (rip or cross-cut), To cultivate a turn for carpentering, plastering, painting, To work as tailor, tailoress, nurse, hostler, porter, To invent a little something ingenious to aid the washing, cooking, cleaning."

The Muse of Poetry shrieks at the mighty lines in praise of "leather-dressing, coach-making, boiler-making," and the rest. Boiler-making, she protests, is a useful industry and highly to be commended, but it is not music. When asked to give a reason why she should not receive all these things as poetry, the Muse is much embarrassed. "It's all true," she says. "Leather-dressing and boiler-making are undoubted realities, while Arthur and Lancelot may be myths." Yet she is not quite ready to be off with the old love and on with the new,--it's all so sudden.

Whitman himself furnishes the best illustrations of the difference between poetry and prose. He comes like another Balaam to prophesy against those who associate poetry with beauty of form and melody of words; and then the poetic spirit seizes upon him and lifts him into the region of harmony. In the Song of the Universal he declares that--

"From imperfection's murkiest cloud Darts always forth one ray of perfect light, One flash of heaven's glory. To fashion's, customs discord, To the mad Babel's din, the deafening orgies, Soothing each lull, a strain is heard, just heard From some far shore, the final chorus sounding. O the blest eyes, the happy hearts That see, that know the guiding thread so fine Along the mighty labyrinth."

There speaks the poet declaring the true faith, which except a man believe he is condemned everlastingly to the outer darkness. His task is selective. No matter about the murkiness of the cloud he must make us see the ray of perfect light. In the mad Babel-din he must hear and repeat the strain of pure music. As to the field of choice, it may be as wide as the world, but he must choose as a poet, and not after the manner of the man with the muck-rake.

"In this broad earth of ours Amid the measureless grossness and the slag, Inclosed and safe within the central heart Nestles the seed perfection."

When the poet delves in the grossness and the slag, he does so as one engaged in the search for the perfect.

"My feeling," says the Gentle Reader, "about the proper material for poetry, is very much like that of Whitman in regard to humanity--

'When warrantee deeds loafe in chairs opposite, and are my friendly companions, I intend to reach them my hand and make as much of them as I do of men and women like you.'

"So I say, when drain pipes and cross-cut saws and the beef on the butcher's stalls are invested with beautiful associations and thrill my soul in some mysterious fashion, then I will make as much of these things as I do of the murmuring pines and the hemlocks. When a poet makes bank clerks and stevedores and wood-choppers to loom before my imagination in heroic proportions, I will receive them as I do the heroes of old. But, mind you, the miracle must be actually performed; I will not be put off with a prospectus."

Now and then the miracle is performed. We are made to feel the romance that surrounds the American pioneer, we hear the

"Crackling blows of axes sounding musically, driven by strong arms."

But, for the most part, Whitman, when under the influence of deep feeling, forgets his theory, and uses as his symbols those things which have already been invested with poetical associations. Turn to that marvelous dirge, "When Lilacs last in the Dooryard bloomed." There is here no catalogue of facts or events, no parade of glaring realism. Tennyson's "sweet sad rhyme" has nowhere more delicious music than we find in the measured cadence of these lines. We are not told the news of the assassination of Lincoln as a man on the street might tell it. It comes to us through suggestion. We are made to feel a mood, not to listen to the description of an event. There is symbolism, suggestion, color mystery. We inhale the languorous fragrance of the lilacs; we see the drooping star; in secluded recesses we hear "a shy and hidden bird" warbling a song; there are dim-lit churches and shuddering organs and tolling bells, and there is one soul heart-broken, seeing all and hearing all.

"Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well, For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands--and this for his dear sake, Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul, There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim."

This is real poetry, and yet while we yield to the charm we are conscious that it is made up of the old familiar elements.

Tennyson's apology to a utilitarian age was not needed:--

"Perhaps some modern touches here and there Redeemed it from the charge of nothingness."

The "modern touches" we can spare. The modern life we have always with us; but it is a rare privilege to enjoy the best things of the past. It is the poet who is the minister of this fine grace. The historian tells us what men of the past did, the philosopher tells us how their civilizations developed and decayed; we smile at their superstitions, and pride ourselves upon our progress. But the ethereal part has vanished, that which made their very superstitions beautiful and cast a halo over their struggles. These are the elements out of which the poet creates his world, into which we may enter. In the order of historic development chivalry must give way before democracy, and loyalty to the king must fade before the increasing sense of liberty and equality; but the highest ideals of chivalry may remain. Imaginative and romantic poetry has this high mission to preserve what otherwise would be lost. It lifts the mind above the daily routine into the region of pure joy. Whatever necessary changes take place in the world we find, in

"All lovely tales which we have heard or read, An endless fountain of immortal drink, Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink."

I have said that one may be a true poet without having any very important thought to communicate, but it must be said that most of the great poets have been serious thinkers as well. They have had their philosophy of life, their thoughts about nature and about human duty and destiny. It is the function of the poet not only to create for us an ideal world and to fill it with ideal creatures, but also to reveal to us the ideal element in the actual world.

"I do not know what poetical is," says Audrey. "Is it honest in deed and word? Is it a true thing?" We must not answer with Touchstone: "No, truly! for the truest poetry is the most feigning."

The poetical interpretation of the world is not feigning; it is a true thing,--the truest thing of which we can know. The grace and sublimity which we see through the poet's eyes are real. We must, however, still insist on our main contention. The poet, if he is to hold us, must always be a poet. His thought must be in solution, and not appear as a dull precipitate of prose. He may be philosophical, but he must not philosophize. He may be moral, but he must not moralize. He may be religious, but let him spare his homilies.

"Whatever the philosopher saith should be done," said Sir Philip Sidney; "the peerless poet giveth a perfect picture of it. He yieldeth to the power of the mind an image of that of which the philosopher bestoweth but a wordish description.... The poet doth not only show the way, but doth give so sweet a prospect unto the way as will entice any man to enter it. Nay, he doth as if your journey should lie through a fair vineyard, at first give you a cluster of grapes."

We have a right to ask our poets to be pleasant companions even when they discourse on the highest themes. Even when they have theories of their own about what we should enjoy, let us not allow them to foist upon us "wordish descriptions" of excellent things instead of poetry. When the poet invites me to go with him I first ask, "Let me taste your grapes."

You remember Mr. By-ends in the "Pilgrim's Progress,"--how he said of Christian and Hopeful, "They are headstrong men who think it their duty to rush on in their journey in all weathers, while I am for waiting for wind or tide. I am for Religion when he walks in his silver slippers in the sunshine." That was very reprehensible in Mr. By-ends, and he richly deserved the rebuke which was afterward administered to him. But when we change the subject, and speak, not of religion, but of poetry, I confess that I am very much of Mr. By-ends' way of thinking. There are literary Puritans who, when they take up the study of a poet, make it a point of conscience to go on to the bitter end of his poetical works. If they start with Wordsworth on his "Excursion," they trudge on in all weathers. They _do_ the poem, as when going abroad they do Europe in six weeks. As the revival hymn says, "doing is a deadly thing." Let me say, good Christian and Hopeful, that though I admire your persistence, I cannot accompany you. I am for a poet only when he puts on his singing robes and walks in the sunshine. As for those times when he goes on prosing in rhyme from force of habit, I think it is more respectful as well as more pleasurable to allow him to walk alone.

* * * * *

Shelley's definition of poetry as "the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds" suggests the whole duty of the reader. All that is required of him is to obey the Golden Rule. There must be perfect reciprocity and fraternal sympathy. The poet, being human, has his unhappy hours, when all things are full of labor. Upon such hours the Gentle Reader does not intrude. In their happiest moments they meet as if by chance. In this encounter they are pleased with one another and with the world they live in. How could it be otherwise? It is indeed a wonderful world, transfigured in the light of thought. Familiar objects lose their sharp outlines and become symbols of universal realities. Likenesses, before unthought of, appear. Nature becomes a mirror of the soul, and answers instantly to each passing mood. Words are no longer chosen, they come unbidden as the poet and his reader

"mount to Paradise By the stairway of surprise."

The Mission of Humor

In "The Last Tournament" we are told how