THE whole world is engaged in the invisible commerce of thought. That
is to say, in the exchange of thoughts by words, symbols, sounds, colors
and forms. The motions of the silent, invisible world, where feeling
glows and thought flames--that contains all seeds of action--are made
known only by sounds and colors, forms, objects, relations, uses and
qualities, so that the visible universe is a dictionary, an aggregation
of symbols, by which and through which is carried on the invisible
commerce of thought. Each object is capable of many meanings, or of
being used in many ways to convey ideas or states of feeling or of facts
that take place in the world of the brain.
The greatest poet is the one who selects the best, the most appropriate
symbols to convey the best, the highest, the sublimest thoughts. Each
man occupies a world of his own. He is the only citizen of his world.
He is subject and sovereign, and the best he can do is to give the facts
concerning the world in which he lives to the citizens of other worlds.
No two of these worlds are alike. They are of all kinds, from the
flat, barren, and uninteresting--from the small and shriveled
and worthless--to those whose rivers and mountains and seas and
constellations belittle and cheapen the visible world. The inhabitants
of these marvelous worlds have been the singers of songs, utterers of
great speech--the creators of art.
And here lies the difference between creators and imitators: the creator
tells what passes in his own world--the imitator does not. The imitator
abdicates, and by the fact of imitation falls upon his knees. He is
like one who, hearing a traveler talk, pretends to others that he has
traveled.
In nearly all lands, the poet has been privileged. For the sake of
beauty, they have allowed him to speak, and for that reason he has told
the story of the oppressed, and has excited the indignation of honest
men and even the pity of tyrants. He, above all others, has added to
the intellectual beauty of the world. He has been the true creator of
language, and has left his impress on mankind.
What I have said is not only true of poetry--it is true of all speech.
All are compelled to use the visible world as a dictionary. Words have
been invented and are being invented, for the reason that new powers are
found in the old symbols, new qualities, relations, uses and meanings.
The growth of language is necessary on account of the development of the
human mind. The savage needs but few symbols--the civilized many--the
poet most of all.
The old idea was, however, that the poet must be a rhymer. Before
printing was known, it was said: the rhyme assists the memory. That
excuse no longer exists.
Is rhyme a necessary part of poetry? In my judgment, rhyme is a
hindrance to expression. The rhymer is compelled to wander from his
subject, to say more or less than he means, to introduce irrelevant
matter that interferes continually with the dramatic action and is a
perpetual obstruction to sincere utterance.
All poems, of necessity, must be short. The highly and purely poetic
is the sudden bursting into blossom of a great and tender thought. The
planting of the seed, the growth, the bud and flower must be rapid. The
spring must be quick and warm, the soil perfect, the sunshine and rain
enough--everything should tend to hasten, nothing to delay. In poetry,
as in wit, the crystallization must be sudden.
The greatest poems are rhythmical. While rhyme is a hindrance, rhythm
seems to be the comrade of the poetic. Rhythm has a natural foundation.
Under emotion the blood rises and falls, the muscles contract and relax,
and this action of the blood is as rhythmical as the rise and fall of
the sea. In the highest form of expression the thought should be in
harmony with this natural ebb and flow.
The highest poetic truth is expressed in rhythmical form. I have
sometimes thought that an idea selects its own words, chooses its own
garments, and that when the thought has possession, absolutely, of the
speaker or writer, he unconsciously allows the thought to clothe itself.
The great poetry of the world keeps time with the winds and the waves.
I do not mean by rhythm a recurring accent at accurately measured
intervals. Perfect time is the death of music. There should always be
room for eager haste and delicious delay, and whatever change there
may be in the rhythm or time, the action itself should suggest perfect
freedom.
A word more about rhythm. I believe that certain feelings and
passions---joy, grief, emulation, revenge, produce certain molecular
movements in the brain--that every thought is accompanied by certain
physical phenomena. Now, it may be that certain sounds, colors, and
forms produce the same molecular action in the brain that accompanies
certain feelings, and that these sounds, colors and forms produce first
the molecular movements and these in their turn reproduce the feelings,
emotions and states of mind capable of producing the same or like
molecular movements. So that what we call heroic music produces the
same molecular action in the brain--the same physical changes--that
are produced by the real feeling of heroism; that the sounds we call
plaintive produce the same molecular movement in the brain that grief,
or the twilight of grief, actually produces. There may be a rhythmical
molecular movement belonging to each state of mind, that accompanies
each thought or passion, and it may be that music, or painting, or
sculpture, produces the same state of mind or feeling that produces
the music or painting or sculpture, by producing the same molecular
movements.
All arts are born of the same spirit, and express like thoughts in
different ways--that is to say, they produce like states of mind and
feeling. The sculptor, the painter, the composer, the poet, the orator,
work to the same end, with different materials. The painter expresses
through form and color and relation; the sculptor through form and
relation. The poet also paints and chisels--his words give form,
relation and color. His statues and his paintings do not crumble,
neither do they fade, nor will they as long as language endures. The
composer touches the passions, produces the very states of feeling
produced by the painter and sculptor, the poet and orator. In all
these there must be rhythm--that is to say, proportion--that is to say,
harmony, melody.
So that the greatest poet is the one who idealizes the common, who gives
new meanings to old symbols, who transfigures the ordinary things of
life. He must deal with the hopes and fears, and with the experiences of
the people.
The poetic is not the exceptional. A perfect poem is like a perfect day.
It has the undefinable charm of naturalness and ease. It must not appear
to be the result of great labor. We feel, in spite of ourselves, that
man does best that which he does easiest.
The great poet is the instrumentality, not always of his time, but
of the best of his time, and he must be in unison and accord with the
ideals of his race. The sublimer he is, the simpler he is. The thoughts
of the people must be clad in the garments of feeling--the words must
be known, apt, familiar. The height must be in the thought, in the
sympathy.
In the olden time they used to have May day parties, and the prettiest
child was crowned Queen of May. Imagine an old blacksmith and his wife
looking at their little daughter clad in white and crowned with roses.
They would wonder while they looked at her, how they ever came to have
so beautiful a child. It is thus that the poet clothes the intellectual
children or ideals of the people. They must not be gemmed and garlanded
beyond the recognition of their parents. Out from all the flowers and
beauty must look the eyes of the child they know.
We have grown tired of gods and goddesses in art. Milton's heavenly
militia excites our laughter. Light-houses have driven sirens from the
dangerous coasts. We have found that we do not depend on the imagination
for wonders--there are millions of miracles under our feet.
Nothing can be more marvelous than the common and everyday facts of
life. The phantoms have been cast aside. Men and women are enough for
men and women. In their lives is all the tragedy and all the comedy that
they can comprehend.
The painter no longer crowds his canvas with the winged and
impossible--he paints life as he sees it, people as he knows them, and
in whom he is interested. "The Angelus," the perfection of pathos, is
nothing but two peasants bending their heads in thankfulness as they
hear the solemn sound of the distant bell--two peasants, who have
nothing to be thankful for, nothing but weariness and want, nothing but
the crusts that they soften with their tears--nothing. And yet as you
look at that picture you feel that they have something besides to be
thankful for--that they have life, love, and hope--and so the distant
bell makes music in their simple hearts.