ABOUT POETS AND POETRY.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXV, Issue 5086, 3 October 1903, Page 9

ABOUT POETS AND POETRY.

(By John, Christie.} I.—POETS IN GENERAL. They callcrl him blaster. Yet he was merely an irresponsible philosopher, who gave lessens in. litoraj| 11:10 to a mglit class attended by about thirteen young men. To-night, oijy two 'pupils hare turned up at the class-room, but they are oho blasters favourites: Amalie, a somewhat shaggy-haired young fellow of seven-aad-tweuty or thereabout, and Trosidcr, a younger man. with indications of conceit about tbe mouth, but with a doptli of eye and breadth or brow that suggest better things. '■ X am glad you aro the only two hero to-night,’’ said the teacher; “for now there will bo no lecture, and we can havo a thoroughly pleasant evening. (J:ic has to talk and talk to drive sonso into some heads; but though v. a sit* and say nothing, you suck in knowledge all the time. Anyhow, I question whether anything worth saying con Vi havo been said under our chosen caption, ’ Poets and Poetry.’ ” “You mean,” observed Ainslio, “that all tlio good tilings have already been said about it by other people.” “Nos that quite, per haps. Jiut. after all, who a-ro poets? Madmen, who see actual things awry, and , rhapsodise about their intuitions and hallucinations as though they were objective realities.” “ That,” said the other, “ is hardly Vo tho tune of what wo have heard you say about old Homer, Job, Isaiah, David, and others of the singing brotherhood.” '‘Well, those old follows knew how to stand firm and look straight, no doubt; and David, for all bis spiritual exaltations, loved a good comic catch, too; .expressed, of course, in the most refined and academic Hebrew, with wit glinting and glancing jiko light on a seraph’s ’wing, each glint dying as. soon as born, but only to be succeeded by another, rarer aivl more Indian; than its predecessor. Not David’s to descend to villainous Philistiuese, on a par with the verbal abominations of tho average clubman’s after-dinner lubricity.” “What! David like catches!” “•Well, the Talmudists say so, I believe; besides, any fool might know if, David being a man, not a. plasler-cf-i’aris prig. But havo yon over been struck with tho amount cf rubbish turned out by modern poets?” . “How?” “ I mean how men of real powers waste themselves on mere tracdi; stulf that is useless to mankind, and utterly discreditable to the writers as men of genius; rubbish that shows them to havo no more talent for self-criticism than a, plum pudding or a wax doll.”' “I am not a metaphysician,” Aicslie .remarked; “and cannot follow you in those soarings and sinkings. I dislike geiting bogged in tiio incomprehensible. May X, without offence, ask you what yen aro driving at?” '• “ And you aro ouo of the students who .do not heed to have tilings explained to them! Surely ” Tho Master talked for fully a quarter of an hour in tho somewhat volcanic, somewhat vitriolic style which ho was apt to fall into when speaking privately to sympathetic listeners. 'When ho had finished “ I seo,” said Ainslio, “ that you never abase your judgment in the presence of oven tho most august genius.” “Why should I?” (retorted the Master. “ There is a sonso in which a man of genius is a messenger from God. That,' however, is no reason for treating him as though ho were an Oriental monarch, and wo Ids slaves. On In’s part, the man of genius is bound bo do his work with dignity and thoroughness, without giving himself vain peacock airs on account of his mission or his manner of fulfilling it ; and tho business of mankind is to respect the powers which aro embodied in bis person, to treat him with honour as their custodian, atrl to profit spiritually, aesthetically and intellectually from their application. But where a man of Croat powers misapplies Ids genius, judgment should specially qualify its attitude towards him. Ho will have many apologists; but need we belong to them? In the highest region of thought and fooling let us forgive all faults and failings, but as a matter of truth and justice in detail, it is an immoral thing to excuse a man,, and particularly, a groat man, in a spirit of . maudlin humanity, for leaving undone what ho should! havo done, or for doing what ho dhould not havo done. Thus to excuse him docs him no goefd, while it weakens and corrupts our moral sonso, and the moral sense of those wo carry with ns in such matters.” “I suppose,?’ observed tho young man, ■ “you would say that poets liko Dryden and Pope would havo had, more credit with posterity if they had burnt all their 1 translations and imitations, and left ns only such pieces as ‘ Absolam and Aohitophel,’ • Cymon and Iphegonia* and ‘Alexander’s Beast,’ in tho ono case, and. in. tho other, tho ‘P u apo of tho Hook,’ 1 Abelard to Eloisa’ and tho ‘ Elegy on tho Death of an Unfortunate Lady.’ Thomson, I suppose, you would confine to his ‘ Castlo of Indolence ’; Gray to his odes and his ‘Elegy’: Burns to his best songs and the ‘Jolly Beggars,’ ‘Tam-o’-Shanter,’ tho ‘Vision,’ tho ‘Daisy,’ tho ‘Mouse,’ ‘Man ‘Was Made to Mpum,’ ‘A Mauls a Man,’ the ‘Address to the Deil,’ ‘A Winter’s Night’ andthe ‘Bard’s Epitaph’; and Collins to his ‘ Passions.’ ” - “ You push my argument too far, and apply it too rigidly; but you aro on the track of my literary ideal. Of the poets you mention, Collins, is almost tho only one who did not waste himsolf on tho transient and unimportant. He wrote hnt little, and I would preserve nearly all ho wrote on account of its melody and tenderness. His poetry has tlio grace, tho purity, tho perfection of form of the finest statuary. Some may think it cold; but are .those who think so not cold themselves, or deficient in imagination?” “ Even so; but who,” asked Ainslio, “reads Collins in thoso days?” “ Assuredly not tho average patrons of the book-stalls and circulating libraries, nor the persons who, at tlio publication of every tenth-rate novel, chatter about it as though it were a master- ■ pieoo of genius. Were these people a bio to distinguish real literature from literary slush, they would he less addicted to the consumption of flummery and garbage. , “ By the way, speaking of Dryden and Pope, Gray and Collins, who were all scholars as well as poets, have you noticed tho number of false or defective rhymes to bo met in their work ? Tlio fact touches a point of real interest l;o those who wish to get into right relations with the genius of tho English tongue. ’ Is usage in the matter capricious? Were tho rhvmcs which would be false now, also false

then, or were tho authors who used tiiom less observant, loss cultivated in the oar i;i regard to such things than we aro nowadays? Tie.so may he trifles, but the poet who overlooks them is not, in my opinion, on the, highway of literary art. A false rhyme' or an uncouth phrase in poetry is as had as a jarring note in music, or an incongruous tint in painting.” “ I suppose you think that tho use cf clipped, contracted and hermaphroditic words—such as ‘ tvho’d ’ for ‘who would,’ ‘you’ll’ for ‘you will.’ ■ r irorr’rt’ for ‘ thou at* .’ ‘ yovr’re ’ for ‘yort ax - o ’ —is incompatible with good literature.” “ Certainly X do,” was the reply. “[ know that three verbal abortions abound even in tho work of great poets. lint all such abuses should disappear - with the advance of literary culture.” " Some nught say that you were inveighing against trifles irr tiro interest of a priggish purism.” "Well. J cannot regard if as a i rifle if a marred genius beluuvos as though ire could trot express his passion or his mirth without playing : rede, upon Ids mother tongue. Let, t itav he left to callow fools, punsters and illiterate botchers'. Tho most joyous gaiety,- the most riant humour needs no such aids.” “ Dp you forget Thomas Hood ?” “ Forget Hood! Please, do not place mo on tho level of that recent reviewer, who, in,his survey of the poetry of tho nineteenth century, trover once mentions Hood, though he dandles the names of Ceorgo Harley and others of that ilk.” ■‘l have,'’ said Ainslic. “a friend who say» that, were it not for Head’s punning and so-callerl humorous pieces, he would as .soon set out for the Temple of Paine with Iris budget as with that of Alfred Tennyson.” “That, I am afraid, is pushing personal preference beyond tire limits of judicial criticism. Vot the man who wrote ‘Tho Bridge, of Sighs,’ ‘ Tim Song of the Shirt,’ ‘The Haunted House.’ ■ Thq Pleft, of the Midsummer* Fairies ’ and ‘ Ruth.’ was a true- poet, worthy of being loved for Iris humanity, and reverenced for. Ji is genius. By tiro way, has it ever struck yon that ‘ln Mcmorir.m,’ notwithstanding exquisite pascnnrrv. r.ptly described by Tennyson himself as Short swallow-flights of song, that dip Their wings in rears, aud skim away, is in reality a diffusive dissertation on a .subject, which is much mors satisfac-un-ily bundled by Raul of Tarsus in iris Epistle to the Romans: ‘O tho depth cf tuo. riches both cf the wisdom and knowledge of God ! How unsearchable aro His judgments, and: His ways past finding cut; for of Him. and through Him, and to Him aro all tilings: to whom be glory for ever.’ Contrast tho concentration aii)d spiritual glow of this with the dill'll son ess aud intellectual paleness cf ‘ln Memorial!!.’ In the one case you have tiro burning breath of virility, in the other the foggy sigh cf va Ictudinarfa iikm. Yet, ‘ln Memorial)! ’ is air interesting poetic mosaic. It fell in, too, with the spiritual temper of its time, and expressed moods and yearnings, by tiro expression of which thousands of its readers felt their own souls lightened and brightened, and raised towards a certitude winch would not have come, to thorn through Paul's words. Therefore, lot us he careful bow wo judge it. But Tennyson himself was undoubtedly right in regarding ‘Maud’ as tho ' corner-stone of his glory. Then, tiro best of his _ short' poems rank with the finest things in literature, and will probably survive to tho end of time as wells of refreshment for fooling hearts and liberal minds. So far as my personal spiritual life and intellectual satisfactions are concern-' od, the ‘ Idylls of tho King ’ need never Iravo been written, except ‘ Merlin’ and ‘Vivien,’ ‘Guinevere’ and ‘ThePassing of Arthur.’ These aro worthy to bo bound up with''Maud, 1 the sl/brtor masterpieces, and tho beautiful lyrics scattered throughout ‘ The Princess,’ aud standing elsewhere on their own feet. But the ‘ldylls’ as a whole aro, for my pereonal taste, too suggestive of a milliner’s showroom. “ That,” , rejoined Ainslio, “ is, perhaps, tho reason why they are so popular with women.” “Beware of■ cleverness, young man; beware of cleverness. lew things arc go likely to prove fatal to a soul’s salvation or a mind’s , development, or moro certain to lead to the facile and fatuous infallibility of politician, journalist and literary critic. Easy is the descent/to Hades.” “Well, I ‘am warned. But, passing Tennyson, surely you will admit that Swinburne is-—” “In one sense, a wilderness of words, in another, a temple of burnished brass, shining in tho sun, ,ou an eastward slope. The fervid radiance thereof is, indeed, trying to the eyes, but from ail the place there come forth melodies moro haunting than any which have fallen on mortal ears sinco tho days of Mornnon’s statue. For a groat poet, ho has written too much that is of merely ’temporary arid . insular interest, but when bo strikes a universal note, as lie often does, its effect is like that produced by mighty music. However,-it is Swinburne's misfortune that/ teeming as lie docs with energy, ho has not energy enough to restrain himself. His dithyrambic method is for great subjects and groat occasions—a thing wlrorowitih to lash the ocean, but not puddles by the way side. The poet has failed to keep this sufficiently in mind, so that, though his genius is a fountain of fire, his lack of judgment has littered his pages with unimportant work —work in which the workmanship, however good, cannot compensate for tho transient interest or essential unimportance’■ of tiro subjects. Such things aro, at best, literary warnings, aud, on these, genius never should expend its divine vitality.” “ And Browning ?” “ Browning's lumber would sink anyone but himself. His work suggests a tropical forest, -where there are wonderful sights and sounds, and the rarest foliage, but also mudh disordered luxuriance, and impassibility. Some of his poems are so fine and so noble —‘Saul,’ for instance, and ‘ Pippa Passes’—that they m,ust survive even the unfavourable conditions created for them by much of his other work, which violates that sense of proportion, that genius for form, which is so essential in literature. Yet, in his essence, he is, perhaps. the greatest Britislirbom genius of his time: with'what firmness-and clearness he pour-trays characters the most diverse, and how thoroughly he turns tho human heart inside out. for example, in ‘The King and the Book.’ Still, many men, .and these not Philistines, would as soon chew hay and eat, sawdust as assimilate Browning; and the poet who lacks artistic form and proportion is damned—as a poet. Even Apollo would have failed as a god had be generally disported himself in the guise of Caliban.” “What of Wordsworth?” asked the young man. “Wordsworth’s garden and grounds,” replied the other, “contain some of the

loveliest flowers and finest trees in tho world of literature; but what piles of sharings, heaps of sawdust and lumps of .unhewn rock are scattered hither and thillu r and all round. In any final summing up, something similar would have to be said, tec, of Coleridge, Shelley, Keats and Byron, who have all, more or less, marred their total effectiveness by giving way to that fatal facility which so many men of genius have for working in veins in winch they cannot he. or at. least never- are, at their best. In my opinion, however, it is not England. but America which supplies tho supreme suggestion in this connection. hook at. Edgar A llan Poe, and-look at AValt Whitman, each so admirable—with a largo qualification; one in respect to matter, and tho other manner. Cut the man who, with adequate genius, combines tho musical charm and literary art. of tho one with tho vivid, warm, comprehensive humanity and instruct for the universal of the other, will bo tire poet of his age, and a groat poet fdr ail “Arc these men not very remarkable; iu .fact, excellent, in their- respeetivo ways? Are yen not counselling :ur interference with nature’s work in suggesting, in regard to things so different, combination?" “Let .nature go on producing what she chooses: as a lover of tho highest literary excellence, I merely say that, in my opinion, ti lat excellence will he reached by the man who gives us work which combines .tho vitally distinctive qualities of Poe and Whitman.” “Is it not wise to beware of counsels of perfection, lit for young gods beat on tho goal of some heavenly Olympus, but far above halting mortals, of tire earth, earthy? Can any man, hy taking thought, add one cubit to his sui-. tare, tiro leopard change his spots, or the Ethiopian his skin; or oven genius realise if t cpf in spite'cf phyisicDogical structure or • psychological bias or limitation ?” “It is no doubt tviso to remember all that: yet not less wise, also, to beware of giving undue emphasis to those very questions.” (To bo Continued.)