POETRY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 189, 12 August 1933, Page 1 (Supplement)

POETRY.

A, POET'S THESIS.

RANGE OVER LIFE.

(By W. D'A. CRESSWELL.)

/Thp following, by the author of Poe?s Progress,' who is a. New'.Zealand®, is part of a thesis on poetry that.will oe published shortly in London by nn at the Bodley Head as a preface to .an anthology of English verse called Since Byron." These articles are copyright.)

Pure music we know is divine, as without words or objects it raises lofty emotions strange and beyond us, whereby we know the -author of such sweet running harmony was in communion with heavenly spirits. It raises such a like harmony in our feelings and such a blessed forgetfulness as therefore its strains must be no less than a pattern and part of our very souls, the only cherished and fit companion of mp's spirit and messenger from In truth pure music is silent and without body or likeness of sound, or address to our reasons or authority over our feelbeing that harmony whereof all creation is made a'nd by apprehension of which man has a soul.

Heavenly Music. For this apprehension and coming into our souls, music must first subdue our feelings and riotous senses and imperfect understandings; wherefoie its pure essence enters some man and possesses him altogether, which we call its creation or infancy, and commands him so strongly, he shall perpetuate oi express it and noise it abroad, as through him it lias entered the woild, and reveal to all men how mortality is subject and servant , to immortality. It is now that music takes on a body or cross habit of sound, uttered by instruments, which is its manhood or earthly fulfilment; in which nature enteis oui ears and strikes our feeling and reason; when otherwise, without that cross bodv of sound, by its fineness it had escaped them, and left our thinking and feeling powers in full iiuitiui possession of our being, so to stad bctween all pure divine music aiKfour selves. But now, our hearing being so ravished by this gross earthly semblance 3 SSie and our thoughts andpassions so overpowered, these arc struck down or casMnto a sleep by the sweet terms and numbers of sound, and thus' sub *ued they no more hinder our souls flora affinity with all , u ? iv( f d music. After musics begetting and manhood, this is its apotheosis or death, or purlin" of grossness, peimittmg its fine and pure essence to reach and recall our spirits put of moital confn ine.ilt into immortality. . There is no doubt that music is divine that

This most cclestiaj music has other embodiments besides that liabit of instruments used by musicians, of which other, expression of words is to my mind the chief and of greatest range. Let sculptors and painters show how their works Jikewise proceed from all divine harmony, and How Tar they excel.'Words are one other means whereby our reason and senses ard ravished and overcome by heavenly music, tliat by subduing those active strong guardians whereto we are captive and charming their watchfulness into a slumber, passes into our souls, possessing us wholely in despite of evil divisions, commanding all our attention, and bringing 'us heavenly refreshment and knowledge and promise of immortality. In this way those soldiers of Syracuse, when they heard the Athenian captives reciting though their anger was roused by the loss of so many comrades and long and desperate assaults against their city, yet they spared their Jives, remembering their common glory and ancestry. So are all fierce extremes and warring determined feelings subdued and governed by poetry; the only ancestor of all, which bequeaths all time and place and nature to men its heirs and partakers of one heavenly estate; knowing which, men will often lay down those advantages they sought for themselves.

Through Our Discords. This is the whole influence of poetry upon us, that it deals in the common actions and words of our daily lives. There are no feelings nor actions nor things, nor conditions of man, whereto, words are not current and fit; Wherefore poetry has a range and. province over all life and Nature and comprising all systems of man. Thus by using words where musicians use other instruments, to catch those rare heavenly sounds, poets purge our speech of its dull heavy habit of use, and jarring divisions of men, pursuing man, like the air he breathes, into every corner and crevice, and restoring all to that harmony wherein creation exists. Which was where I began. How great a sway and inspection is this, wllere without it man treads in discomfort and doubt, holding converse with his own reason and judgment alone, learning by nothing but use, engraving his littleness on all his acts and telling thereof from one tongue to another, which each interprets according to his own need an'd understanding, so that all is discrepancy, babel and darkness, unlike even the beasts. Let us hope for no such misfortune, not even to come. For where once there were poets, and these are remembered, this makes for something, though now there be none.

Poetry speaks to us through our discords and very same matters where for men risk and offer their lives, making our strifes and sorrows sound like heavenly tongues. No wonder those bloody soldiers' fury was struck still. There is no glory and presence like hers, nor deep attention and silence like that she commands, who raises our common habit of life to such a height of grandeur and courage as all who listen to poetry are It is strange beyond, a

knowledge that things which were wanting and Weak and took all our watching should-now so command us arid discover our feebleness. By no othef means than a superior-habit and style. Such is this weak jarring instrument of words whereon vain unskilful men in their talk make discords every minute, but which poets 6trike timely arid fitly with divine knowledge of harmony wherewith they aro filled. Strong actions and strife, wherein we are cast away, are yet the miraculous trophies of poetry, and spoils and strange extremes of darkness; no more to be dreaded. Poetry, though of a lofty dazzling mien, yet swimmeth in blood, and stinketh of all mortal stains and soils; and is withal of so tender and meek and wishful a spirit as by its healing sound we are made glad of those mortal sickness and bloody errors that bring us such blessed ease. By these strange extremes it surprises us, and persuades us of prowess more than wonted well-known puissance can. From all things everywhere its light cometli easily forth; but of other matters, the less they partake of that light the more straitly they move, and are not otherwise known but where they alone belong. As the night is only for thieves, but the open day is for all honest men. Plunder Lath its paths; and warfare, like the lion, its look-out and its lair; but poetry, like the innocent flocks, inhabiteth everywhere. Poetry no less commands and astonishes us than would the gentle sheep, if she would come dressed of her own accord in the fresh steaming skin of the lion, and lay at our feet, and through his bleeding jaws bid us now be at ease and live no more in dread of being waylaid and torn by wild beasts, as she had vanquished even the greatest among them. Would we not wonder, who had dreaded fury and licence even in its own shane?

Satisfaction and Enrichment. Without poetry is within us we are inclosed in want and uncertainty by our weakness and passion wherein we are shut; but by her presence within us we have all after which we strove. How uncertain was victory in arms and expeditions of ships, or pledges of ambassadors or alliances with other States, or the cause of anything or coming of what shall befall, wherein the Athenians were inclosed; yet by a semblance of all euch uncertainties poetry satisfies and enriches them more than they thought to desire, and enlightens and exercises their spirits which before were inclosed, and leads them to know what otherwise their hasty passions had overlooked, and to practise what without it they had not seen to be wise, and makes them a mighty people, remembered till now. The healer of all that was past and ■ distilling of all things to come, poetry prevails over a people like music over our minds, allayiug tlicii civil disorders and many perplexities, and showing the many wherein they are one. What a victory is this, what uses the very terms of our discords and imperfect actions of men to this end! Truly poets, then, arc inspired, no less than music is divine. (To be continued.) • -