ABOUT READING
To write good verse one must read good verse. The world has spun too
long for a man to succeed who depends wholly on his own ideas; he must
profit by the work of others. The more poetry and the more kinds of
poetry the verse maker reads the broader his knowledge of the subject
becomes. First it touches his vocabulary, then his rhymes and meters and
lastly his methods.
Though all good literature is helpful in this way, the book which gives
the most enjoyment is very apt to bring the most profit. But it should
not be forgotten that many authors are unpopular because of a hasty
first impression. A rainy day and a disagreeable companion will spoil
the effect of the prettiest scenery in the world, and a bad dinner and a
headache may turn a masterpiece into a lasting abomination. Any poet
whose work has lived must possess some quality which is worth
appreciating if not acquiring. Given a fair trial without prejudice he
will speak for himself.
It is not in the compass of this chapter to list the "Poets Who Should
Be Reverenced." It is better for the verse maker to experiment and
select his patron saints for himself. Yet attention may be called to
certain accepted masters with whose work even the beginner should be
familiar.
At the head of the list stands the Bible. The beauty and simplicity of
its speech fully explain how this book has inspired generation after
generation of poets. Job, Isaiah, the Psalms and the writings of Solomon
are in themselves a treasury of phrase and suggestion.
Shakespeare is to be read for the poetry of his lines and picturesque
word-grouping if for nothing else. For that matter, the songs of all the
Elizabethan dramatists are worthy of study and restudy. They have a lilt
and a lightness which make them live even now when so many literary
fashions have passed away.
The old English ballads, to be found in Percy's Reliques, Allingham's
Ballad Book and most collections of English Literature, are a help
toward understanding the construction of a spirited narrative poem.
Kipling's "Ballad of East and West" shows how effectively this sort of
treatment can be applied to a modern theme.
Robert Herrick is worth while for the grace and delicacy of his poems;
with him might be classed the better efforts of Lovelace and Sir John
Suckling.
Milton's "Paradise Lost" is perhaps the best example we have of
continuous blank verse. It should be read but not imitated, at least not
imitated too much. It is hard to distinguish good blank verse from bad
and it is so easy to write the bad.
Dryden's "Alexander's Feast" deserves a perpetual bookmark for the
remarkable success with which the trend of emotion is interpreted by the
rhythm. "The Bells," by Edgar Allan Poe, is another example of this
treatment and is held by some critics to be equally good.
Pope's verse and that of his age generally is too cleverly artificial to
be of much use to a modern, though his mastery of the epigrammatic
couplet might be profitably noted.
As an exemplification of finished workmanship Gray's "Elegy in a Country
Churchyard" stands alone.
Robert Burns, for the swing of his songs and the flavor of his words,
should be read continually. Much of his Scotch vocabulary might be used,
judiciously, in English verse.
In the "Eve of St. Agnes," Keats has revealed possibilities in the
Spenserian stanza of which Spenser himself was not aware, and the "Ode
to a Nightingale" and the "Ode on a Grecian Urn" have a classic beauty
which can be recognized though not successfully copied.
Of the more modern poets Browning's strange, uncouth phrasing is full of
power; Tennyson's mastery is shown in his exquisite choice of words, and
Swinburne's meters and rhymes are worth close application.
And so one might go on for a dozen pages and still have an incomplete
list. It is not what one reads but how one reads. The books wait on the
shelves and through reading and through reading only can one cultivate
that most necessary though indefinable quality--Good Taste.
XII
HINTS FOR BEGINNERS