THE POETRY CURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3832, 23 August 1927, Page 74

THE POETRY CURE.

Have you hastened and aspired till your very bones axe tired?— Poetry can give you rest With. its laughter and its zeet, Or can conjure you to sleep By the flocks of misty sheep Where the lotos flowers weep. Has dumb terror grazed your heart With his dusky-feathered dart? — Poetry may do for you More thatn Galen’s tribe can do— More than winds of sea or mountain, More than old De Leon’s fountain. It can suck the poison out, Dry the wound with moly, rout Every imp of care and doubt, Give you armour fit to break Any missile fear can make. Windy pride has puffed you double? — Poetry can prick your bubble. It can rouse your stagnant blood To an effervescent flood. Have the city claims and clamours Mauled you with their reddened hammers?— Run to Romney Marsh or Glynn, To the peace of God within The Theocritean sea Or the isle of Innisfres. Children cause your heart to harden ? Pups and beggars in the garden? — You require poetic doses Versus cardiac sclerosis. {See if Patmore on The Toys Softens you toward little boys, And The Tuft of Flowers evokeg Fellowship for other folks. Does your lame, rheumatic fancy Long to feel youth’s necromancy? Does your stiff imagination Need a little lubrication?— With Grace Conkling be beguiled By the visions of a child. Touch at Tyre with Elroy Flecker In hie rose-leaved single-decker; Steer the glamorous galley on To the realm of Kubla Khan; On to Samarkand and Niger; Quizz with Blake the burning tiger; Loose your falcon-soul to elay Silver herons with Benet. Frolic’s dearth and labour's glut Clamp your mind into a rut ? Does your spirit ccaee to burgeon? — Summon the Celestial Surgeon; Bid R. Hovey make you play; Pluck the figs of E. Millay, (Serve them with a pinch" of salt!); Take the open road with Walt. Is the world drab, gross, malign? Plush your brow with beauty's wine. Through its dream s tuff be "new born; Stand yith Ruth amid the corn; Heed “the studious cloister's’’ hymn And “the young-eyed cherubim.’’ Are you cold with melancholy? — Certain psalms are passing jollv. Never let a sigh disgrace you When Bliss Carman s tune can brace vou 1 Rout the imps with Yeats’s guile— Masefield’s chuckle, Milton’s smile. Or is life so blurred with sorrow That you shudder at to-morrow ?— Feel the Stygian world new born As you sound Pandora’s horn! See *he murky sky relume As you touch her helm and plume! Robert Haven Schaufflar, in Contemporary Verse.