How well we know the language of the conventional poetic! In this
language, the language of nine tenths of current poetry, the wind comes
up out of the south and kisses the rose's crimson mouth, or it comes out
of the wood and rumples the poppy's hood. Morning comes in glistening
sandals, and her footsteps are jeweled with flowers. Everything is
bedecked and bejeweled. Nothing is truly seen or truly reported. It is an
attempt to paint the world beautiful. It is not beautiful as it is, and we
must deck it out in the colors of the fancy. Now, I do not want the world
painted for me. I want the grass green or brown, as the case may be; the
sky blue, the rocks gray, the soil red; and that the sun should rise and
set without any poetic claptrap. What I want is to see these things spin
around a thought, or float on the current of an emotion, as they always do
in real poetry.
Beauty always follows, never leads the great poet. It arises out of the
interior substance and structure of his work, like the bloom of health in
the cheeks. The young poet thinks to win Beauty by direct and persistent
wooing of her. He has not learned yet that she comes unsought to the
truthful, the brave, the heroic. Let him think some great thought,
experience some noble impulse, give himself with love to life and reality
about him, and Beauty is already his. She is the reward of noble deeds.