WHAT THE DREAMERS CAN DO.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume X, Issue 510, 19 January 1883, Page 19

WHAT THE DREAMERS CAN DO.

On last Saturday, says a New York paper this week, the frigate Constitution, better known as " Old Ironsides," was towed by the Powhatan down the East River on her way to Portmouth. What ha 9 this to do with the dreamers 1 Listen : This great old warship, Constitution, was Admiral Stewart's vessel, in which he whipped the British ships, Cayne and Levant, two to one, and towed them as prizes into port with the American flag at their peak. And years after, when the commonplace officials at Washington gave orders to break up the old Constitution, that vandalism would have bsen done but for the poet who threw his song on the wind, which carried it to every heart in America, and created such a rage of enthusiasm that the staunch old ship was saved like a sacred thing, and became protected of the people, to lie in harbour undisturbed until her timbers rotted and she sank at peace into the kindly sea. All this was done by Oliver Wendell Holmes's thrilling poem :—: — " Ay tear her tattered ensign down 1" Last week, the grand-daughter of the Commander of Old Ironsides, Fanny Parnell, was laid at rest in the tomb of her family at Mt. Auburn. She, too, proves the power of the poet. No influence has been more potent in the present marvellous movement of the Irish race for freedom for Ireland than the songs of this delicate lady. To-day in her grave, her very memory is a symbol that will yet thrill the Irish heart to its deepest chords. When the body of the beloved poetess is earned to Ireland to be buried "under the shamrocks," her passionate songs will sing themselves in the hearts of the bareheaded multitudes. In Ireland, forty years ago, the poets moved the dormant nation into revolution. Like flame-flashes their hearts were made to leap into heroism by the magnificent liberty-songs of Thomas Davis, Lady Wilde and Gavan Duffy ; and the fire they lighted has been kept burning by such ballads as Kickham's " Rory of the Hills." The great French Revolution of the last century, and all French Revolutions forever, owe more to " The Marseillaise " of poor Ronget de Lisle than to Robespierres and Dantons and Marats, for they are mere bodies, while this terrible and immortal hymn is a lightening soul. In Norway, to-day, a great poet, Bjorason, who visited America last year, beards a powerful King amidst his own court ; excites the people to the separation of Norway from Sweden ; and the King has to remain silent £nd passive, for all kings are learning that a poet in a prison or in exile or in the grave is neither silent nor dead, but even speaks with more vivid meaning to the restless hearts of the people. In England, there have been no poets of the people, probably because the masses are too ignorant. The literary class has its sympathies almost entirely with the aristocracy. But Charles Beade's 11 Never Too Late to Mend " reformed an outrageous prison system, and the authors of " Ginx's Baby " aid " The Romance of the Nineteenth Century " have applied hissing caustic to certain political and social evils. In America, it is doubtful whether the match that lit the guns of Fort Sumter would have been struck in this century had it not been fur the romance of a woman. And if " Uncle Tom's Cabin " precipitated our war for liberty and union, " John Brown's body lies a-moul-dering in the ground, but his soul goes marching on," chanted in hundreds of conflicts, had a tremendous influence on the marches and battles of the Northern soldiery.

In Russia, the terror of the despotism, and the force by which it j mast change or die, Nihilism, is the creation wholly of the poets and story-tellers. Its origin was the publication of two romances, one written in 1847 by Alexander Herzen, under the title of " Whose Fault is it V and the other, called " What to Do About It," written in 1863 by Nicholas Cernicewski, while he was imprisoned at St. Petersburg. The authors were banished and their works confiscated ; but the seed had been sown, the doom-note had been struck. Another writer, more powerful than either, Turgenieff, sent out his romances among the people of Russia, and maddened them into activity and organisation. In all his books, he struck but two monotonous and dreadful notes, the inhuman degradation of the people, and the merciless rule of the aristocrat. He gave no advice : offered no remedy. He gave Russia two things : a picture of tyranny, and the word " Nihilism." He is a banished and an old man ; but he is the strongest man in Russia to-day — far stronger than the skulking and hunted Czar.

There is no power more forcible to excite, to destroy, to reform, than the power of the poet and story-teller. They are the makers of symbol ; and one symbol embraces and represents a thousand com* mon facts. Their creations are truer than tho petty truths of the editor, the statesman, the essayist. The Divine authority suggests the ustjtijf fable and parable in moving the people. It is well for mankiri™riat the truly great dreamers have ever been true to the greatest truths.— PUot.