"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."