THE POETIC PRINCIPLE

In speaking of the Poetic Principle, I have no design to be either

thorough or profound. While discussing, very much at random, the

essentiality of what we call Poetry, my principal purpose will be to

cite for consideration some few of those minor English or American

poems which best suit my own taste, or which upon my own fancy have

left the most definite impression. By "minor poems" I mean, of course,

poems of little length. And here in the beginning permit me to say a

few words in regard to a somewhat peculiar principle, which, whether

rightfully or wrongfully, has always had its influence in my own

critical estimate of the poem. I hold that a long poem does not exist.

I maintain that the phrase, "a long poem," is simply a flat

contradiction in terms.

I need scarcely observe that a poem deserves its title only inasmuch as

it excites, by elevating the soul. The value of the poem is in the

ratio of this elevating excitement. But all excitements are, through a

psychal necessity, transient. That degree of excitement which would

entitle a poem to be so called at all cannot be sustained throughout a

composition of any great length. After the lapse of half an hour, at

the very utmost, it flags--fails--a revulsion ensues--and then the poem

is, in effect, and in fact, no longer such.

There are, no doubt, many who have found difficulty in reconciling the

critical dictum that the "Paradise Lost" is to be devoutly admired

throughout, with the absolute impossibility of maintaining for it,

during perusal, the amount of enthusiasm which that critical dictum

would demand. The great work, in fact, is to be regarded as poetical,

only when, losing sight of that vital requisite in all works of Art,

Unity, we view it merely as a series of minor poems. If, to preserve

its Unity--its totality of effect or impression--we read it (as would

be necessary) at a single sitting, the result is but a constant

alternation of excitement and depression. After a passage of what we

feel to be true poetry, there follows, inevitably, a passage of

platitude which no critical prejudgment can force us to admire; but if,

upon completing the work, we read it again, omitting the first book

(that is to say, commencing with the second), we shall be surprised at

now finding that admirable which we before condemned--that damnable

which we had previously so much admired. It follows from all this that

the ultimate, aggregate, or absolute effect of even the best epic under

the sun is a nullity;--and this is precisely the fact.

In regard to the "Iliad," we have, if not positive proof, at least very

good reason for believing it intended as a series of lyrics; but,

granting the epic intention, I can say only that the work is based in

an imperfect sense of art. The modern epic is, of the supposititious

ancient model, but an inconsiderate and blindfold imitation. But the

day of these artistic anomalies is over. If, at any time, any very

long poems were popular in reality--which I doubt--it is at least clear

that no very long poem will ever be popular again.

That the extent of a poetical work is, _ceteris paribus_, the measure

of its merit, seems undoubtedly, when we thus state it, a proposition

sufficiently absurd--yet we are indebted for it to the Quarterly

Reviews. Surely there can be nothing in mere size, abstractly

considered--there can be nothing in mere bulk, so far as a volume is

concerned which has so continuously elicited admiration from these

saturnine pamphlets! A mountain, to be sure, by the mere sentiment of

physical magnitude which it conveys, does impress us with a sense of

the sublime--but no man is impressed after this fashion by the material

grandeur of even "The Columbiad." Even the Quarterlies have not

instructed us to be so impressed by it. _As yet_, they have not

_insisted_ on our estimating Lamartine by the cubic foot, or Pollok by

the pound--but what else are we to _infer_ from their continual prating

about "sustained effort"? If, by "sustained effort," any little

gentleman has accomplished an epic, let us frankly commend him for the

effort,--if this indeed be a thing commendable,--but let us forbear

praising the epic on the effort's account. It is to be hoped that

common sense, in the time to come, will prefer deciding upon a work of

Art, rather by the impression it makes--by the effect it produces--than

by the time it took to impress the effect, or by the amount of

"sustained effort" which had been found necessary in effecting the

impression. The fact is, that perseverance is one thing and genius

quite another; nor can all the Quarterlies in Christendom confound

them. By and by, this proposition, with many which I have been just

urging, will be received as self-evident. In the mean time, by being

generally condemned as falsities they will not be essentially damaged

as truths.

On the other hand, it is clear that a poem may be improperly brief.

Undue brevity degenerates into mere epigrammatism. A _very_ short

poem, while now and then producing a brilliant or vivid, never produces

a profound or enduring, effect. There must be the steady pressing down

of the stamp upon the wax. Beranger has wrought innumerable things,

pungent and spirit-stirring; but, in general, they have been too

imponderous to stamp themselves deeply into the public opinion, and

thus, as so many feathers of fancy, have been blown aloft only to be

whistled down the wind.

A remarkable instance of the effect of undue brevity in depressing a

poem--in keeping it out of the popular view--is afforded by the

following exquisite little serenade:--

I arise from dreams of thee

In the first sweet sleep of night,

When the winds are breathing low,

And the stars are shining bright;

I arise from dreams of thee,

And a spirit in my feet

Hath led me--who knows how?--

To thy chamber-window, sweet!

The wandering airs, they faint

On the dark, the silent stream;

And the champak odors fail

Like sweet thoughts in a dream;

The nightingale's complaint,

It dies upon her heart,

As I must on thine,

Oh, beloved as thou art!

Oh, lift me from the grass!

I die! I faint! I fail!

Let thy love in kisses rain

On my lips and eyelids pale.

My cheek is cold and white, alas!

My heart beats loud and fast:

Oh! press it to thine own again,

Where it will break at last!

Very few, perhaps, are familiar with these lines--yet no less a poet

than Shelley is their author. Their warm, yet delicate and ethereal

imagination will be appreciated by all; but by none so thoroughly as by

him who has himself arisen from sweet dreams of one beloved, to bathe

in the aromatic air of a southern midsummer night.

One of the finest poems by Willis--the very best, in my opinion, which

he has ever written--has, no doubt, through this same defect of undue

brevity, been kept back from its proper position, not less in the

critical than in the popular view.

The shadows lay along Broadway,

'Twas near the twilight-tide--

And slowly there a lady fair

Was walking in her pride.

Alone walked she; but, viewlessly,

Walked spirits at her side.

Peace charmed the street beneath her feet,

And Honor charmed the air;

And all astir looked kind on her,

And called her good as fair;

For all God ever gave to her

She kept with chary care.

She kept with care her beauties rare

From lovers warm and true,--

For her heart was cold to all but gold,

And the rich came not to woo,--

But honored well are charms to sell

If priests the selling do.

Now walking there was one more fair--

A slight girl, lily-pale;

And she had unseen company

To make the spirit quail;

'Twixt Want and Scorn she walked forlorn,

And nothing could avail.

No mercy now can clear her brow

For this world's peace to pray;

For, as love's wild prayer dissolved in air,

Her woman's heart gave way!--

But the sin forgiven by Christ in Heaven

By man is cursed alway!

In this composition we find it difficult to recognize the Willis who

has written so many mere "Verses of society." The lines are not only

richly ideal, but full of energy, while they breathe an earnestness--an

evident sincerity of sentiment--for which we look in vain throughout

all the other works of this author.

While the epic mania--while the idea that, to merit in poetry,

prolixity is indispensable--has, for some years past, been gradually

dying out of the public mind by mere dint of its own absurdity--we find

it succeeded by a heresy too palpably false to be long tolerated, but

one which, in the brief period it has already endured, may be said to

have accomplished more in the corruption of our Poetical Literature

than all its other enemies combined. I allude to the heresy of _The

Didactic_. It has been assumed, tacitly and avowedly, directly and

indirectly, that the ultimate object of all Poetry is Truth. Every

poem, it is said, should inculcate a moral; and by this moral is the

poetical merit of the work to be adjudged. We Americans, especially,

have patronized this happy idea; and we Bostonians, very especially,

have developed it in full. We have taken it into our heads that to

write a poem simply for the poem's sake, and to acknowledge such to

have been our design, would be to confess ourselves radically wanting

in the true Poetic dignity and force; but the simple fact is, that,

would we but permit ourselves to look into our own souls, we should

immediately there discover that under the sun there neither exists nor

can exist any work more thoroughly dignified, more supremely noble,

than this very poem--this poem _per se_--this poem which is a poem and

nothing more--this poem written solely for the poem's sake.

With as deep a reverence for the True as ever inspired the bosom of

man, I would, nevertheless, limit in some measure its modes of

inculcation. I would limit to enforce them. I would not enfeeble them

by dissipation. The demands of Truth are severe; she has no sympathy

with the myrtles. All _that_ which is so indispensable in Song, is

precisely all _that_ with which _she_ has nothing whatever to do. It

is but making her a flaunting paradox to wreathe her in gems and

flowers. In enforcing a truth we need severity rather than

efflorescence of language. We must be simple, precise, terse. We must

be cool, calm, unimpassioned. In a word, we must be in that mood,

which, as nearly as possible, is the exact converse of the poetical.

He must be blind, indeed, who does not perceive the radical and chasmal

differences between the truthful and the poetical modes of inculcation.

He must be theory-mad beyond redemption who, in spite of these

differences, shall still persist in attempting to reconcile the

obstinate oils and waters of Poetry and Truth.

Dividing the world of mind into its three most immediately obvious

distinctions, we have the Pure Intellect, Taste, and the Moral Sense.

I place Taste in the middle, because it is just this position which in

the mind it occupies. It holds intimate relations with either extreme,

but from the Moral Sense is separated by so faint a difference that

Aristotle has not hesitated to place some of its operations among the

virtues themselves. Nevertheless, we find the _offices_ of the trio

marked with a sufficient distinction. Just as the intellect concerns

itself with Truth, so Taste informs us of the Beautiful, while the

Moral Sense is regardful of Duty. Of this latter, while Conscience

teaches the obligation, and Reason the expediency, Taste contents

herself with displaying the charms:--waging war upon Vice solely on the

ground of her deformity--her disproportion--her animosity to the

fitting, to the appropriate, to the harmonious--in a word, to Beauty.

An immortal instinct, deep within the spirit of man, is thus, plainly,

a sense of the Beautiful. This it is which administers to his delight

in the manifold forms, and sounds, and odors, and sentiments, amid

which he exists. And just as the lily is repeated in the lake, or the

eyes of Amaryllis in the mirror, so is the mere oral or written

repetition of these forms, and sounds, and colors, and odors, and

sentiments, a duplicate source of delight. But this mere repetition is

not poetry. He who shall simply sing, with however glowing enthusiasm,

or with however vivid a truth of description, of the sights, and

sounds, and odors, and colors, and sentiments, which greet _him_ in

common with all mankind--he, I say, has yet failed to prove his divine

title. There is still a something in the distance which he has been

unable to attain. We have still a thirst unquenchable, to allay which

he has not shown us the crystal springs. This thirst belongs to the

immortality of Man. It is at once a consequence and an indication of

his perennial existence. It is the desire of the moth for the star.

It is no mere appreciation of the Beauty before us, but a wild effort

to reach the Beauty above. Inspired by an ecstatic prescience of the

glories beyond the grave, we struggle, by multiform combinations among

the things and thoughts of Time, to attain a portion of that Loveliness

whose very elements, perhaps, appertain to eternity alone. And thus

when by Poetry--or when by Music, the most entrancing of the Poetic

moods--we find ourselves melted into tears not as the Abbate Gravia

supposes through excess of pleasure, but through a certain petulant,

impatient sorrow at our inability to grasp now, wholly, here on earth,

at once and forever, those divine and rapturous joys, of which

_through_ the poem, or _through_ the music, we attain to but brief and

indeterminate glimpses.

The struggle to apprehend the supernal Loveliness--this struggle, on

the part of souls fittingly constituted--has given to the world all

that which it (the world) has ever been enabled at once to understand

and to feel as poetic.

The Poetic Sentiment, of course, may develop itself in various

modes--in Painting, in Sculpture, in Architecture, in the Dance--very

especially in Music,--and very peculiarly and with a wide field, in the

composition of the Landscape Garden. Our present theme, however, has

regard only to its manifestation in words. And here let me speak

briefly on the topic of rhythm. Contenting myself with the certainty

that Music, in its various modes of metre, rhythm, and rhyme, is of so

vast a moment in Poetry as never to be wisely rejected--is so vitally

important an adjunct, that he is simply silly who declines its

assistance--I will not now pause to maintain its absolute essentiality.

It is in Music, perhaps, that the soul most nearly attains the great

end for which, when inspired by the Poetic Sentiment, it struggles--the

creation of supernal Beauty. It may be, indeed, that here this sublime

end is, now and then, attained in fact. We are often made to feel,

with a shivering delight, that from an earthly harp are stricken notes

which cannot have been unfamiliar to the angels. And thus there can be

little doubt that in the union of Poetry with Music in its popular

sense we shall find the widest field for the Poetic development. The

old Bards and Minnesingers had advantages which we do not possess--and

Thomas Moore, singing his own songs, was, in the most legitimate

manner, perfecting them as poems.

To recapitulate, then:--I would define, in brief, the Poetry of words

as _The Rhythmical Creation of Beauty_. Its sole arbiter is Taste.

With the Intellect or with the Conscience, it has only collateral

relations. Unless incidentally, it has no concern whatever either with

Duty or with Truth.

A few words, however, in explanation. That pleasure which is at once

the most pure, the most elevating, and the most intense, is derived, I

maintain, from the contemplation of the Beautiful. In the

contemplation of Beauty we alone find it possible to attain that

pleasurable elevation, or excitement, _of the soul_, which we recognize

as the Poetic Sentiment, and which is so easily distinguished from

Truth, which is the satisfaction of the Reason, or from Passion, which

is the excitement of the heart. I make Beauty, therefore,--using the

word as inclusive of the sublime,--I make Beauty the province of the

poem, simply because it is an obvious rule of Art that effects should

be made to spring as directly as possible from their causes--no one as

yet having been weak enough to deny that the peculiar elevation in

question is at least _most readily_ attainable in the poem. It by no

means follows, however, that the incitements of Passion, or the

precepts of Duty, or even the lessons of Truth, may not be introduced

into a poem and with advantage; for they may subserve, incidentally, in

various ways, the general purposes of the work; but the true artist

will always contrive to tone them down in proper subjection to that

_Beauty_ which is the atmosphere and the real essence of the poem.

I cannot better introduce the few poems which I shall present for your

consideration, than by the citation of the "Proem" to Mr. Longfellow's

"Waif":

The day is done, and the darkness

Falls from the wings of Night,

As a feather is wafted downward

From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village

Gleam through the rain and the mist,

And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me,

That my soul cannot resist:

A feeling of sadness and longing,

That is not akin to pain,

And resembles sorrow only

As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,

Some simple and heartfelt lay,

That shall soothe this restless feeling,

And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,

Not from the bards sublime,

Whose distant footsteps echo

Through the corridors of Time.

For, like strains of martial music,

Their mighty thoughts suggest

Life's endless toil and endeavor;

And to-night I long for rest.

Read from some humbler poet,

Whose songs gushed from his heart,

As showers from the clouds of summer,

Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who, through long days of labor,

And nights devoid of ease,

Still heard in his soul the music

Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet

The restless pulse of care,

And come like the benediction

That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume

The poem of thy choice,

And lend to the rhyme of the poet

The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music,

And the cares, that infest the day,

Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,

And as silently steal away.

With no great range of imagination, these lines have been justly

admired for their delicacy of expression. Some of the images are very

effective. Nothing can be better than--

the bards sublime,

Whose distant footsteps echo

Through the corridors of Time.

The idea of the last quatrain is also very effective. The poem, on the

whole, however, is chiefly to be admired for the graceful _insouciance_

of its metre, so well in accordance with the character of the

sentiments, and especially for the _ease_ of the general manner. This

"ease," or naturalness, in a literary style, it has long been the

fashion to regard as ease in appearance alone--as a point of really

difficult attainment. But not so; a natural manner is difficult only

to him who should never meddle with it--to the unnatural. It is but

the result of writing with the understanding, or with the instinct,

that _the tone_, in composition, should always be that which the mass

of mankind would adopt--and must perpetually vary, of course, with the

occasion. The author who, after the fashion of the "North American

Review," should be, upon _all_ occasions, merely "quiet," must

necessarily, upon _many_ occasions, be simply silly, or stupid; and has

no more right to be considered "easy," or "natural," than a Cockney

exquisite, or than the sleeping Beauty in the wax-works.

Among the minor poems of Bryant, none has so much impressed me as the

one which he entitles "June." I quote only a portion of it:--

There, through the long, long summer hours,

The golden light should lie,

And thick, young herbs and groups of flowers

Stand in their beauty by.

The oriole should build and tell

His love-tale, close beside my cell;

The idle butterfly

Should rest him there, and there be heard

The housewife-bee and humming-bird.

And what, if cheerful shouts at noon,

Come, from the village sent,

Or songs of maids, beneath the moon

With fairy laughter blent?

And what, if in the evening light,

Betrothèd lovers walk in sight

Of my low monument?

I would the lovely scene around

Might know no sadder sight nor sound.

I know that I no more should see

The season's glorious show,

Nor would its brightness shine for me,

Nor its wild music flow;

But if, around my place of sleep,

The friends I love should come to weep,

They might not haste to go.

Soft airs, and song, and light, and bloom

Should keep them, lingering by my tomb.

These to their softened hearts should bear

The thought of what has been,

And speak of one who cannot share

The gladness of the scene;

Whose part, in all the pomp that fills

The circuit of the summer hills,

Is--that his grave is green;

And deeply would their hearts rejoice

To hear again his living voice.

The rhythmical flow, here, is even voluptuous--nothing could be more

melodious. The poem has always affected me in a remarkable manner.

The intense melancholy, which seems to well up, perforce, to the

surface of all the poet's cheerful sayings about his grave, we find

thrilling us to the soul, while there is the truest poetic elevation in

the thrill. The impression left is one of a pleasurable sadness.

And if, in the remaining compositions which I shall introduce to you,

there be more or less of a similar tone always apparent, let me remind

you that (how or why we know not) this certain taint of sadness is

inseparably connected with all the higher manifestations of true

Beauty. It is, nevertheless,

A feeling of sadness and longing

That is not akin to pain,

And resembles sorrow only

As the mist resembles the rain.

The taint of which I speak is clearly perceptible even in a poem so

full of brilliancy and spirit as the "Health" of Edward C. Pinkney:--

I fill this cup to one made up

Of loveliness alone,

A woman, of her gentle sex

The seeming paragon;

To whom the better elements

And kindly stars have given

A form so fair, that, like the air,

'Tis less of earth than heaven.

Her every tone is music's own,

Like those of morning birds,

And something more than melody

Dwells ever in her words;

The coinage of her heart are they,

And from her lips each flows

As one may see the burdened bee

Forth issue from the rose.

Affections are as thoughts to her,

The measures of her hours;

Her feelings have the fragrancy,

The freshness of young flowers;

And lovely passions, changing oft,

So fill her, she appears

The image of themselves by turns,--

The idol of past years!

Of her bright face one glance will trace

A picture on the brain,

And of her voice in echoing hearts

A sound must long remain;

But memory, such as mine of her,

So very much endears,

When death is nigh, my latest sigh

Will not be life's, but hers.

I fill this cup to one made up

Of loveliness alone,

A woman, of her gentle sex

The seeming paragon--

Her health! and would on earth there stood

Some more of such a frame,

That life might be all poetry,

And weariness a name.

It was the misfortune of Mr. Pinkney to have been born too far south.

Had he been a New Englander, it is probable that he would have been

ranked as the first of American lyrists by that magnanimous cabal which

has so long controlled the destinies of American Letters, in conducting

the thing called the "North American Review." The poem just cited is

especially beautiful; but the poetic elevation which it induces we must

refer chiefly to our sympathy in the poet's enthusiasm. We pardon his

hyperboles for the evident earnestness with which they are uttered.

It was by no means my design, however, to expatiate upon the _merits_

of what I should read you. These will necessarily speak for

themselves. Boccalini, in his "Advertisements from Parnassus," tells

us that Zoilus once presented Apollo a very caustic criticism upon a

very admirable book; whereupon the god asked him for the beauties of

the work. He replied that he only busied himself about the errors. On

hearing this, Apollo, handing him a sack of unwinnowed wheat, bade him

pick out _all the chaff_ for his reward.

Now this fable answers very well as a hit at the critics; but I am by

no means sure that the god was in the right. I am by no means certain

that the true limits of the critical duty are not grossly

misunderstood. Excellence, in a poem especially, may be considered in

the light of an axiom, which need only be properly _put_, to become

self-evident. It is not excellence if it requires to be demonstrated

as such; and thus, to point out too particularly the merits of a work

of Art, is to admit that they are not merits altogether.

Among the "Melodies" of Thomas Moore, is one whose distinguished

character as a poem proper seems to have been singularly left out of

view. I allude to his lines beginning: "Come, rest in this bosom."

The intense energy of their expression is not surpassed by anything in

Byron. There are two of the lines in which a sentiment is conveyed

that embodies the _all in all_ of the divine passion of love--a

sentiment which, perhaps, has found its echo in more, and in more

passionate, human hearts than any other single sentiment ever embodied

in words:--

Come, rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer,

Though the herd have fled from thee, thy home is still here;

Here still is the smile that no cloud can o'ercast,

And a heart and a hand all thy own to the last.

Oh! what was love made for, if 'tis not the same

Through joy and through torment, through glory and shame?

I know not, I ask not, if guilt's in that heart,

I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art.

Thou hast called me thy angel in moments of bliss,

And thy angel I'll be, 'mid the horrors of this,--

Through the furnace, unshrinking, thy steps to pursue,

And shield thee, and save thee,--or perish there too!

It has been the fashion, of late days, to deny Moore imagination, while

granting him fancy--a distinction originating with Coleridge--than whom

no man more fully comprehended the great powers of Moore. The fact is

that the fancy of this poet so far predominates over all his other

faculties, and over the fancy of all other men, as to have induced,

very naturally, the idea that he is fanciful only. But never was there

a greater mistake. Never was a grosser wrong done the fame of a true

poet. In the compass of the English language I can call to mind no

poem more profoundly, more weirdly _imaginative_, in the best sense,

than the lines commencing: "I would I were by that dim lake," which are

the composition of Thomas Moore. I regret that I am unable to remember

them.

One of the noblest--and, speaking of fancy, one of the most singularly

fanciful--of modern poets, was Thomas Hood. His "Fair Ines" had

always, for me, an inexpressible charm:--

O saw ye not fair Ines?

She's gone into the West,

To dazzle when the sun is down,

And rob the world of rest;

She took our daylight with her,

The smiles that we love best,

With morning blushes on her cheek,

And pearls upon her breast.

O turn again, fair Ines,

Before the fall of night,

For fear the moon should shine alone,

And stars unrivalled bright;

And blessèd will the lover be

That walks beneath their light,

And breathes the love against thy cheek

I dare not even write!

Would I had been, fair Ines,

That gallant cavalier,

Who rode so gayly by thy side,

And whispered thee so near!

Were there no bonny dames at home,

Or no true lovers here,

That he should cross the seas to win

The dearest of the dear?

I saw thee, lovely Ines,

Descend along the shore,

With bands of noble gentlemen,

And banners waved before;

And gentle youth and maidens gay,

And snowy plumes they wore;

It would have been a beauteous dream--

If it had been no more!

Alas, alas, fair Ines!

She went away with song,

With Music waiting on her steps,

And shoutings of the throng;

But some were sad and felt no mirth,

But only Music's wrong,

In sounds that sang Farewell, Farewell,

To her you've loved so long.

Farewell, farewell, fair Ines!

That vessel never bore

So fair a lady on its deck,

Nor danced so light before,--

Alas, for pleasure on the sea,

And sorrow on the shore!

The smile that blest one lover's heart

Has broken many more!

"The Haunted House," by the same author, is one of the truest poems

ever written; one of the _truest_, one of the most unexceptionable, one

of the most thoroughly artistic both in its theme and in its execution.

It is, moreover, powerfully ideal, imaginative. I regret that its

length renders it unsuitable for the purposes of this Lecture. In

place of it, permit me to offer the universally appreciated "Bridge of

Sighs."

One more Unfortunate,

Weary of breath,

Rashly importunate,

Gone to her death!

Take her up tenderly,

Lift her with care:

Fashioned so slenderly,

Young, and so fair!

Look at her garments

Clinging like cerements;

Whilst the wave constantly

Drips from her clothing;

Take her up instantly,

Loving, not loathing,--

Touch her not scornfully;

Think of her mournfully,

Gently and humanly;

Not of the stains of her--

All that remains of her

Now, is pure womanly.

Make no deep scrutiny

Into her mutiny

Rash and undutiful:

Past all dishonor,

Death has left on her

Only the beautiful.

Still, for all slips of hers,

One of Eve's family--

Wipe those poor lips of hers

Oozing so clammily,

Loop up her tresses

Escaped from the comb,

Her fair auburn tresses;

Whilst wonderment guesses

Where was her home?

Who was her father?

Who was her mother?

Had she a sister?

Had she a brother?

Or was there a dearer one

Still, and a nearer one

Yet, than all other?

Alas! for the rarity

Of Christian charity

Under the sun!

Oh, it was pitiful!

Near a whole city full,

Home she had none.

Sisterly, brotherly,

Fatherly, motherly

Feelings had changed;

Love, by harsh evidence,

Thrown from its eminence;

Even God's providence

Seeming estranged.

Where the lamps quiver

So far in the river,

With many a light

From window and casement,

From garret to basement,

She stood, with amazement,

Houseless by night.

The bleak wind of March

Made her tremble and shiver,

But not the dark arch,

Or the black flowing river:

Mad from life's history,

Glad to death's mystery,

Swift to be hurled--

Anywhere, anywhere

Out of the world!

In she plunged boldly,

No matter how coldly

The rough river ran,--

Over the brink of it,

Picture it--think of it,

Dissolute man!

Lave in it, drink of it,

Then, if you can!

Take her up tenderly,

Lift her with care;

Fashioned so slenderly,

Young, and so fair!

Ere her limbs frigidly

Stiffen too rigidly,

Decently--kindly--

Smoothe and compose them:

And her eyes, close them,

Staring so blindly!

Dreadfully staring

Through muddy impurity,

As when with the daring

Last look of despairing

Fixed on futurity.

Perishing gloomily,

Spurred by contumely,

Cold inhumanity,

Burning insanity,

Into her rest.--

Cross her hands humbly,

As if praying dumbly,

Over her breast!

Owning her weakness,

Her evil behavior,

And leaving, with meekness,

Her sins to her Saviour!

The vigor of this poem is no less remarkable than its pathos. The

versification, although carrying the fanciful to the very verge of the

fantastic, is nevertheless admirably adapted to the wild insanity which

is the thesis of the poem.

Among the minor poems of Lord Byron, is one which has never received

from the critics the praise which it undoubtedly deserves:--

Though the day of my destiny's over,

And the star of my fate hath declined,

Thy soft heart refused to discover

The faults which so many could find;

Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted,

It shrunk not to share it with me,

And the love which my spirit hath painted

It never hath found but in _thee_.

Then when nature around me is smiling,

The last smile which answers to mine,

I do not believe it beguiling,

Because it reminds me of thine;

And when winds are at war with the ocean,

As the breasts I believed in with me,

If their billows excite an emotion,

It is that they bear me from _thee_.

Though the rock of my last hope is shivered,

And its fragments are sunk in the wave,

Though I feel that my soul is delivered

To pain--it shall not be its slave.

There is many a pang to pursue me;

They may crush, but they shall not contemn;

They may torture, but shall not subdue me;

'Tis of _thee_ that I think--not of them.

Though human, thou didst not deceive me;

Though woman, thou didst not forsake;

Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me;

Though slandered, thou never couldst shake;

Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me;

Though parted, it was not to fly;

Though watchful, 'twas not to defame me;

Nor mute, that the world might belie.

Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it,

Nor the war of the many with one--

If my soul was not fitted to prize it,

'Twas folly not sooner to shun;

And if dearly that error hath cost me,

And more than I once could foresee,

I have found that, whatever it lost me,

It could not deprive me of _thee_.

From the wreck of the past, which hath perished,

Thus much I at least may recall:

It hath taught me that what I most cherished

Deserved to be dearest of all.

In the desert a fountain is springing,

In the wide waste there still is a tree,

And a bird in the solitude singing,

Which speaks to my spirit of _thee_.

Although the rhythm here is one of the most difficult, the

versification could scarcely be improved. No nobler theme ever engaged

the pen of poet. It is the soul-elevating idea, that no man can

consider himself entitled to complain of Fate while, in his adversity,

he still retains the unwavering love of woman.

From Alfred Tennyson--although in perfect sincerity I regard him as the

noblest poet that ever lived--I have left myself time to cite only a

very brief specimen. I call him, and _think_ him, the noblest of

poets, _not_ because the impressions he produces are, at _all_ times,

the most profound, _not_ because the poetical excitement which he

induces is, at _all_ times, the most intense, but because it _is_, at

all times, the most ethereal--in other words, the most elevating and

the most pure. No poet is so little of the earth, earthy. What I am

about to read is from his last long poem, "The Princess":--

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,

Tears from the depth of some divine despair

Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,

In looking on the happy autumn fields,

And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail

That brings our friends up from the underworld;

Sad as the last which reddens over one

That sinks with all we love below the verge;

So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns

The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds

To dying ears, when unto dying eyes

The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;

So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remembered kisses after death,

And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned

On lips that are for others; deep as love,

Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;

O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

Thus, although in a very cursory and imperfect manner, I have

endeavored to convey to you my conception of the Poetic Principle. It

has been my purpose to suggest that, while this Principle itself is,

strictly and simply, the Human Aspiration for Supernal Beauty, the

manifestation of the Principle is always found in _an elevating

excitement of the Soul_, quite independent of that passion which is the

intoxication of the Heart, or of that Truth which is the satisfaction

of the Reason. For, in regard to Passion, alas! its tendency is to

degrade rather than elevate the Soul. Love, on the contrary--Love, the

true, the divine Eros, the Uranian as distinguished from the Dionaean

Venus--is unquestionably the purest and truest of all poetical themes.

And in regard to Truth--if, to be sure, through the attainment of a

truth we are led to perceive a harmony where none was apparent before,

we experience, at once the true poetical effect; but this effect is

referable to the harmony alone, and not in the least degree to the

truth which merely served to render the harmony manifest.

We shall reach, however, more immediately a distinct conception of what

the true Poetry is, by mere reference to a few of the simple elements

which induce in the Poet himself the true poetical effect. He

recognizes the ambrosia, which nourishes his soul, in the bright orbs

that shine in Heaven, in the volutes of the flower, in the clustering

of low shrubberies, in the waving of the grain-fields, in the slanting

of the tall, Eastern trees, in the blue distance of mountains, in the

grouping of clouds, in the twinkling of half-hidden brooks, in the

gleaming of silver rivers, in the repose of sequestered lakes, in the

star-mirroring depths of lonely wells. He perceives it in the songs of

birds, in the harp of Aeolus, in the sighing of the night-wind, in the

repining voice of the forest, in the surf that complains to the shore,

in the fresh breath of the woods, in the scent of the violet, in the

voluptuous perfume of the hyacinth, in the suggestive odor that comes

to him at eventide from far-distant, undiscovered islands, over dim

oceans, illimitable and unexplored. He owns it in all noble thoughts,

in all unworldly motives, in all holy impulses, in all chivalrous,

generous, and self-sacrificing deeds. He feels it in the beauty of

woman, in the grace of her step, in the lustre of her eye, in the

melody of her voice, in her soft laughter, in her sigh, in the harmony

of the rustling of her robes. He deeply feels it in her winning

endearments, in her burning enthusiasms, in her gentle charities, in

her meek and devotional endurances; but above all--ah! far above

all--he kneels to it, he worships it in the faith, in the purity, in

the strength, in the altogether divine majesty of her love.

Let me conclude by the recitation of yet another brief poem--one very

different in character from any that I have before quoted. It is by

Motherwell, and is called "The Song of the Cavalier." With our modern

and altogether rational ideas of the absurdity and impiety of warfare,

we are not precisely in that frame of mind best adapted to sympathize

with the sentiments, and thus to appreciate the real excellence, of the

poem. To do this fully, we must identify ourselves, in fancy, with the

soul of the old cavalier.

Then mounte! then mounte, brave gallants, all,

And don your helmes amaine:

Deathe's couriers, Fame and Honor, call

Us to the field againe.

No shrewish teares shall fill our eye

When the sword-hilt's in our hand;

Heart-whole we'll part and no whit sighe

For the fayrest of the land;

Let piping swaine, and craven wight,

Thus weepe and puling crye,

Our business is like men to fight,

And hero-like to die!