I tried to read a beautifully printed and scholarly volume on "the
Theory of Poetry," received by mail this morning from England--but gave
it up at last for a bad job. Here are some capricious pencillings that
follow'd, as I find them in my notes:
In youth and maturity Poems are charged with sunshine and varied pomp of
day; but as the soul more and more takes precedence, (the sensuous still
included,) the Dusk becomes the poet's atmosphere. I too have sought,
and ever seek, the brilliant sun, and make my songs according. But as I
grow old, the half-lights of evening are far more to me.
The play of Imagination, with the sensuous objects of Nature for symbols
and Faith--with Love and Pride as the unseen impetus and moving-power of
all, make up the curious chess-game of a poem.
Common teachers or critics are always asking "What does it mean?"
Symphony of fine musician, or sunset, or sea-waves rolling up the
beach--what do they mean? Undoubtedly in the most subtle-elusive sense
they mean something--as love does, and religion does, and the best
poem;--but who shall fathom and define those meanings? (I do not intend
this as a warrant for wildness and frantic escapades--but to justify the
soul's frequent joy in what cannot be defined to the intellectual part,
or to calculation.)
At its best, poetic lore is like what may be heard of conversation in
the dusk, from speakers far or hid, of which we get only a few broken
murmurs. What is not gather'd is far more--perhaps the main thing.
Grandest poetic passages are only to be taken at free removes, as we
sometimes look for stars at night, not by gazing directly toward them,
but off one side.
(_To a poetic student and friend._)--I only seek to put you in rapport.
Your own brain, heart, evolution, must not only understand the matter,
but largely supply it.