There have been many definitions of poetry ranging all the way from the
well-known Englishman’s definition, “A criticism of human life,” to that
given by one of the most original of all poets, Poe, “the rhythmical
creation of beauty.” That was merely as these two men saw it, or had the
poetic principle developed in them—the first, practically; the second in
all the rythmical beauty and sensuousness and indefinable mistiness of
the immortal “Raven.”
It is quite plain that no definition can be given of poetry that would
apply to all poetry or even to the poetic principle. No more than can be
given a definition of love, or the sweet character of the Christ, or of
God, or of eternity. Each true poem, like the keys of a piano, may awake
a different chord, and every one perfect. To attempt to define the poetic
principle would be like attempting to sound the depths of our immortal
souls, the very spirit of eternal life, a depth as varied as humanity—in
some, as deep as the valleys in the ocean’s bed, in other “ending in
shallows and in miseries.” I believe it was Mendelssohn who said there
were two things mortal man should not attempt to define—“God Almighty and
Thorough-Base-and-Harmony.”
Poetry is the music of the intellect and, therefore, like the musical
principle, is indefinable. But what are some of its attributes?
First of all, real poetry is true, and absolutely a part of our souls,
our experience, ourselves, our most positive beliefs. At first it may
not be readily understood by us—a fact in itself which should warn us
not to be too hasty in condemning it, because that very fact may show
it has touched on a higher, not a lower plane than the plane we are on,
and that we must climb to it, not drag it down to us. Such is the poetry
of Keats, Tennyson, Shelley and Browning. And you who say you cannot
read poetry, and who have had your taste destroyed for true poetry by
newspaper jingle, which lies at one extreme, and magazine poetry, which
lies at the other, and both of which are more often false than true, let
me ask you before you give up, to read some of the real poetry from each
of the authors above before saying again that you cannot love poetry.
Read Keats’ “The Eve of St. Agnes,” Tennyson’s “The Princess,” Shelley’s
“To a Skylark,” and Longfellow’s “Evangeline.” In these, as in all true
poetry, though all of it may not be fully grasped at first, there is an
indefinable something that touches us and makes us wish to read it again
and again until, having tuned our own souls to the key of its beauty we
stand elevated, instructed, sweetened, strengthened, blessed!
The true poem, like the true poet, has a mission to perform and should
go right to the heart of it—no beating around the bush, no mental
pyrotechnics, no flowery words to sweeten and weaken it, no “churning
about to get up a foam,” no intellectual mistiness, but the simple
laying of the hands on the eyes of the blind! For every poet is also a
preacher, and the greatest of all preachers. And if it fails to perform
its mission, if it does not sound its chord, and that clearly, but a
mere jingling of pretty bells, it is no more a poem than a dancing harem
girl, with silver bells, bracelets and anklets on her, is a woman. Every
poem that has ever lived lived because it filled a mission; and all those
that have died, died because they had none to fill. “The Psalm of Life,”
“Highland Mary,” “Evelyn Hope,” “Thanatopsis”—these and hundreds of
others, short as they are, came with a mission and, finding it, performed
it, and each of the above, with the lesson it teaches, is a statue in
the temple of fame and will stand there for all times as clearly and
distinctly as Washington, Bruce, Nelson or Jackson.
Let us not judge poetry, then, by the two false extremes in which we meet
it most often—newspapers and magazines—and the two which have caused so
many to form unfavorable opinions of poetry. Forgetting that rhyme is
not poetry, and that a poem is the product of life, the newspaper poet
tries to jingle one out every day. He might as well try to live his
year in a day! Clipped by some thoughtless editor, who uses his shears
as recklessly as he does his spleen, and who clips as he writes—to
fill space—the newspaper poet mistakes even this for ephemeral fame
and like a howling dervish continues to dance around the circle to the
monotonous music of his tom-tom; while the magazine fellow, after months
of laborious travail, brings forth an intellectual mouse. Posterity
will indict the first of these for false pretenses, and hang the other
for downright murder. But like the thief and the murderer of old, the
punishment of one will not bring back the good opinion of poetry to those
from whom he has filched it, nor will the lynching of the other give back
to the world the life of Art after the murderer has taken it.
Imagine Robert Burns, having made a reputation with his “Highland Mary,”
and filled with the newspaper’s idea of his art, grinding out another
poem every few days to the Scotch lassie his genius immortalized.
Posterity would hate him. Think of Shelley, for ten dollars a week,
“trying his hand again on the ‘Skylark.’” And yet this is what many
so-called modern newspaper poets try to do.
The truth is, the true poet, like the mocking bird, never sings twice
on the same note, but in that song he exhausts his soul. It is only the
jaybird who sings the same thing every day and imagines it is a new song.
I do not mean by the above criticism that real genius may not now and
then appear in newspapers. In fact, more of it—much more—appears there
than in magazines, being often the bursting of a wild rose in the meadow
into full bloom and giving its perfume to the world without pay and
without knowledge of its own sweetness. But as the wild rose cannot bloom
every day in the year, so have I never yet seen two newspaper gems in
one year by the same poet. And those that appear, written quickly, and
apparently thoughtlessly, yet are they the product of years of sweet
growth of unconscious development, of work, imperceptibly wrought out,
but, like the coral castle beneath the sea, as perfect and as beautiful.
But as between the newspaper and the magazine poet, give me the
former—for now and then he writes a poem, but the magazine poet—seldom!
The first-named is often a true poet, and my only objection to him
is that he lowers the standard of his art, he desecrates his high
calling by a too often, too feeble, and a too familiar attempt; but the
magazine poems, after years of reading them, I am constrained to believe
that, with few exceptions, they are utterly devoid of even the poetic
principle. Their authors not only would not know a poem if they met one
in the road, but they could not read one if an angel of light would write
it with a diamond-pointed star on the windows of heaven!
Poetry need not rhyme, it need not be written in verse, even; and the
simple test of it all is, does it awaken some chord in you that uplifts?
With Old Wash.