“Where does eloquence end, where does poetry begin?” inquires Renan in
his “Future of Science.” And he goes on to say, “The whole difference
lies in a peculiar harmony, in a more or less sonorous ring, with
regard to which an experienced faculty never hesitates.”
Is not the “sonorous ring,” however, more characteristic of eloquence
than of poetry? Poetry does begin where eloquence ends; it is a higher
and finer harmony. Nearly all men feel the power of eloquence, but
poetry does not sway the multitude; it does not sway at all,--it lifts,
and illuminates, and soothes. It reaches the spirit, while eloquence
stops with the reason and the emotions.
Eloquence is much the more palpable, real, available; it is a wind that
fills every sail and makes every mast bend, while poetry is a breeze
touched with a wild perfume from field or wood. Poetry is consistent
with perfect tranquillity of spirit; a true poem may have the calm of
a summer day, the placidity of a mountain lake, but eloquence is a
torrent, a tempest, mass in motion, an army with banners, the burst of
a hundred instruments of music. Tennyson’s “Maud” is a notable blending
of the two.
There is something martial in eloquence, the roll of the drum, the cry
of the fife, the wheel and flash of serried ranks. Its end is action;
it shapes events, it takes captive the reason and the understanding.
Its basis is earnestness, vehemence, depth of conviction.
There is no eloquence without heat, and no poetry without light. An
earnest man is more or less an eloquent man. Eloquence belongs to the
world of actual affairs and events; it is aroused by great wrongs
and great dangers, it flourishes in the forum and the senate. Poetry
is more private and personal, is more for the soul and the religious
instincts; it courts solitude and wooes the ideal.
Anything swiftly told or described, the sense of speed and volume,
is, or approaches, eloquence; while anything heightened and deepened,
any meaning and beauty suddenly revealed, is, or approaches, poetry.
Hume says of the eloquence of Demosthenes, “It is rapid harmony,
exactly adjusted to the sense. It is vehement reasoning without any
appearance of art; it is disdain, anger, boldness, freedom, involved in
a continual stream of argument.”
The passions of eloquence and poetry differ in this respect; one is
reason inflamed, the other is imagination kindled.
Any object of magnitude in swift motion, a horse at the top of his
speed, a regiment of soldiers on the double quick, a train of cars
under full way, moves us in a way that the same object at rest does
not. The great secret of eloquence is to set mass in motion, to
marshal together facts and considerations, imbue them with passion, and
hurl them like an army on the charge upon the mind of the reader or
hearer.
The pleasure we derive from eloquence is more acute, more
physiological, I might say, more of the blood and animal spirits, than
our pleasure from poetry. I imagine it was almost a dissipation to have
heard a man like Father Taylor. One’s feelings and emotions were all
out of their banks like the creeks in spring. But this was largely the
result of his personal magnetism and vehemence of utterance.
The contrast between eloquent prose and poetic prose would be more to
the point. The pleasure from each is precious and genuine, but our
pleasure from the latter is no doubt more elevated and enduring.
Gibbon’s prose is often eloquent, never poetical. Ruskin’s prose is at
times both, though his temperament is not that of the orator. There is
more caprice than reason in him. The prose of De Quincey sometimes has
the “sonorous ring” of which Renan speaks. The following passage from
his essay on “The Philosophy of Roman History” is a good sample:--
“The battle of Actium was followed by the final conquest of Egypt.
That conquest rounded and integrated the glorious empire; it was now
circular as a shield, orbicular as the disk of a planet; the great
Julian arch was now locked into the cohesion of granite by its last
keystone. From that day forward, for three hundred years, there was
silence in the world; no muttering was heard; no eye winked beneath the
wing. Winds of hostility might still rave at intervals, but it was on
the outside of the mighty empire, it was at a dreamlike distance; and,
like the storms that beat against some monumental castle, ‘and at the
doors and windows seem to call,’ they rather irritated and vivified the
sense of security, than at all disturbed its luxurious lull.”
Contrast with this a passage from Emerson’s first prose work, “Nature,”
wherein the poetic element is more conspicuous:--
“The poet, the orator, bred in the woods, whose senses have been
nourished by their fair and appeasing changes, year after year, without
design and without heed, shall not lose their lesson altogether,
in the roar of cities or the broil of politics. Long hereafter,
amidst agitation and terror in national councils,--in the hour of
revolution,--these solemn images shall reappear in their morning
lustre, as fit symbols and words of the thoughts which the passing
events shall awaken. At the call of a noble sentiment, again the woods
wave, the pines murmur, the river rolls and shines, and the cattle low
upon the mountains, as he saw and heard them in his infancy. And with
these forms, the spells of persuasion, the keys of power are put into
his hands.”
Or this passage from Carlyle’s “French Revolution,” shall we call it
eloquent prose or poetic prose?
“In this manner, however, has the Day bent downwards. Wearied mortals
are creeping home from their field labors; the village artisan eats
with relish his supper of herbs, or has strolled forth to the village
street for a sweet mouthful of air and human news. Still summer
eventide everywhere! The great sun hangs flaming on the uttermost
northwest; for it is his longest day this year. The hilltops,
rejoicing, will ere long be at their ruddiest, and blush good-night.
The thrush in green dells, on long-shadowed leafy spray, pours gushing
his glad serenade, to the babble of brooks grown audible; silence is
stealing over the Earth.”
What noble eloquence in Tacitus! Indeed, eloquence was natural to the
martial and world-subduing Roman; but his poetry is for the most part
of a secondary order. It is often said of French poetry that it is more
eloquent than poetic. Of English poetry the reverse is probably true,
though of such a poet as Byron it seems to me that eloquence is the
chief characteristic.
Byron never, to my notion, touches the deeper and finer poetic chords.
He is witty, he is brilliant, he is eloquent, but is he ever truly
poetical? He stirs the blood, he kindles the fancy, but does he ever
diffuse through the soul the joy and the light of pure poetry? Goethe
expressed almost unbounded admiration for Byron, yet admitted that he
was too worldly-minded, and that a great deal of his poetry should have
been fired off in Parliament in the shape of parliamentary speeches.
Wordsworth, on the other hand, when he was not prosy and heavy, was
poetical; he was never eloquent.
A fine sample of eloquence in poetry is Browning’s “How they brought
the Good News from Ghent to Aix.” Of its kind there is nothing in
the language to compare with it. One needs to read such a piece
occasionally as a moral sanitary measure; it aerates his emotions as
a cataract does a creek. Scott’s highest excellence as a poet is his
eloquence. The same is true of Macaulay and of Campbell, though the
latter’s “To the Rainbow” breathes the spirit of true poetry.
Among our own poets Halleck’s “Marco Bozzaris” thrills us with its
fiery eloquence. Dr. Holmes’s “Old Ironsides” also is just what such
a poem should be, just what the occasion called for, a rare piece of
rhymed eloquence.
Eloquence is so good, so refreshing, it is such a noble and elevating
excitement, that one would fain have more of it, even in poetry. It is
too rare and precious a product to be valued lightly.