No More Learning

THE POETIC PRINCIPLE

IN speaking of the Poetic Principle, I have no design to be either
thorough or profound. While discussing, very much at random, the
essentiality of what we call Poetry, my principal purpose will be to
cite for consideration, some few of those minor English or American
poems which best suit my own taste, or which, upon my own fancy, have
left the most definite impression. By "minor poems" I mean, of course,
poems of little length. And here, in the beginning, permit me to say
a few words in regard to a somewhat peculiar principle, which, whether
rightfully or wrongfully, has always had its influence in my own
critical estimate of the poem. I hold that a long poem does not exist. I
maintain that the phrase, "a long poem," is simply a flat contradiction
in terms.

I need scarcely observe that a poem deserves its title only inasmuch as
it excites, by elevating the soul. The value of the poem is in the ratio
of this elevating excitement. But all excitements are, through a psychal
necessity, transient. That degree of excitement which would entitle
a poem to be so called at all, cannot be sustained throughout a
composition of any great length. After the lapse of half an hour, at the
very utmost, it flags--fails--a revulsion ensues--and then the poem is,
in effect, and in fact, no longer such.

There are, no doubt, many who have found difficulty in reconciling
the critical dictum that the "Paradise Lost" is to be devoutly admired
throughout, with the absolute impossibility of maintaining for it,
during perusal, the amount of enthusiasm which that critical dictum
would demand. This great work, in fact, is to be regarded as poetical,
only when, losing sight of that vital requisite in all works of Art,
Unity, we view it merely as a series of minor poems. If, to preserve
its Unity--its totality of effect or impression--we read it (as would be
necessary) at a single sitting, the result is but a constant alternation
of excitement and depression. After a passage of what we feel to be
true poetry, there follows, inevitably, a passage of platitude which no
critical prejudgment can force us to admire; but if, upon completing
the work, we read it again, omitting the first book--that is to say,
commencing with the second--we shall be surprised at now finding
that admirable which we before condemned--that damnable which we had
previously so much admired. It follows from all this that the ultimate,
aggregate, or absolute effect of even the best epic under the sun, is a
nullity:--and this is precisely the fact.

In regard to the Iliad, we have, if not positive proof, at least very
good reason for believing it intended as a series of lyrics; but,
granting the epic intention, I can say only that the work is based in an
imperfect sense of art. The modern epic is, of the supposititious ancient
model, but an inconsiderate and blindfold imitation. But the day of
these artistic anomalies is over. If, at any time, any very long poem
_were _popular in reality, which I doubt, it is at least clear that no
very long poem will ever be popular again.

That the extent of a poetical work is, _ceteris paribus, _the measure
of its merit, seems undoubtedly, when we thus state it, a proposition
sufficiently absurd--yet we are indebted for it to the Quarterly
Reviews. Surely there can be nothing in mere _size, _abstractly
considered--there can be nothing in mere _bulk, so _far as a volume
is concerned, which has so continuously elicited admiration from these
saturnine pamphlets! A mountain, to be sure, by the mere sentiment of
physical magnitude which it conveys, _does _impress us with a sense
of the sublime--but no man is impressed after _this _fashion by the
material grandeur of even "The Columbiad. " Even the Quarterlies have
not instructed us to be so impressed by it. As _yet, _they have not
_insisted _on our estimating "Lamar" tine by the cubic foot, or Pollock
by the pound--but what else are we to _infer _from their continual
plating about "sustained effort"? If, by "sustained effort," any little
gentleman has accomplished an epic, let us frankly commend him for the
effort--if this indeed be a thing conk mendable--but let us forbear
praising the epic on the effort's account. It is to be hoped that common
sense, in the time to come, will prefer deciding upon a work of Art
rather by the impression it makes--by the effect it produces--than by
the time it took to impress the effect, or by the amount of "sustained
effort" which had been found necessary in effecting the impression. The
fact is, that perseverance is one thing and genius quite another--nor
can all the Quarterlies in Christendom confound them. By and by, this
proposition, with many which I have been just urging, will be received
as self-evident. In the meantime, by being generally condemned as
falsities, they will not be essentially damaged as truths.

On the other hand, it is clear that a poem may be improperly brief.
Undue brevity degenerates into mere epigrammatism. A very short poem,
while now and then producing a brilliant or vivid, never produces a
profound or enduring effect. There must be the steady pressing down
of the stamp upon the wax. De Beranger has wrought innumerable
things, pungent and spirit-stirring, but in general they have been too
imponderous to stamp themselves deeply into the public attention, and
thus, as so many feathers of fancy, have been blown aloft only to be
whistled down the wind.

A remarkable instance of the effect of undue brevity in depressing
a poem, in keeping it out of the popular view, is afforded by the
following exquisite little Serenade--

I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright.
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Has led me--who knows how? --
To thy chamber-window, sweet!

The wandering airs they faint
On the dark the silent stream--
The champak odors fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale's complaint,
It dies upon her heart,
As I must die on shine,
O, beloved as thou art!

O, lift me from the grass!
I die, I faint, I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast:
O, press it close to shine again,
Where it will break at last.

Very few perhaps are familiar with these lines--yet no less a poet
than Shelley is their author. Their warm, yet delicate and ethereal
imagination will be appreciated by all, but by none so thoroughly as by
him who has himself arisen from sweet dreams of one beloved to bathe in
the aromatic air of a southern midsummer night.

One of the finest poems by Willis--the very best in my opinion which
he has ever written--has no doubt, through this same defect of undue
brevity, been kept back from its proper position, not less in the

The shadows lay along Broadway,
'Twas near the twilight-tide--
And slowly there a lady fair
Was walking in her pride.
Alone walk'd she; but, viewlessly,
Walk'd spirits at her side.

Peace charm'd the street beneath her feet,
And Honor charm'd the air;
And all astir looked kind on her,
And called her good as fair--
For all God ever gave to her
She kept with chary care.

She kept with care her beauties rare
From lovers warm and true--
For heart was cold to all but gold,
And the rich came not to won,
But honor'd well her charms to sell.
If priests the selling do.

Now walking there was one more fair--
A slight girl, lily-pale;
And she had unseen company
To make the spirit quail--
'Twixt Want and Scorn she walk'd forlorn,
And nothing could avail.

No mercy now can clear her brow
From this world's peace to pray
For as love's wild prayer dissolved in air,
Her woman's heart gave way! --
But the sin forgiven by Christ in Heaven
By man is cursed alway!

In this composition we find it difficult to recognize the Willis who has
written so many mere "verses of society. " The lines are not only richly
ideal, but full of energy, while they breathe an earnestness, an evident
sincerity of sentiment, for which we look in vain throughout all the
other works of this author.

While the epic mania, while the idea that to merit in poetry prolixity
is indispensable, has for some years past been gradually dying out of
the public mind, by mere dint of its own absurdity, we find it succeeded
by a heresy too palpably false to be long tolerated, but one which,
in the brief period it has already endured, may be said to have
accomplished more in the corruption of our Poetical Literature than all
its other enemies combined. I allude to the heresy of _The Didactic. _It
has been assumed, tacitly and avowedly, directly and indirectly, that
the ultimate object of all Poetry is Truth. Every poem, it is said,
should inculcate a morals and by this moral is the poetical merit of the
work to be adjudged. We Americans especially have patronized this happy
idea, and we Bostonians very especially have developed it in full. We
have taken it into our heads that to write a poem simply for the poem's
sake, and to acknowledge such to have been our design, would be to
confess ourselves radically wanting in the true poetic dignity and
force:--but the simple fact is that would we but permit ourselves to
look into our own souls we should immediately there discover that under
the sun there neither exists nor _can _exist any work more thoroughly
dignified, more supremely noble, than this very poem, this poem _per se,
_this poem which is a poem and nothing more, this poem written solely
for the poem's sake.

With as deep a reverence for the True as ever inspired the bosom of man,
I would nevertheless limit, in some measure, its modes of inculcation.
I would limit to enforce them. I would not enfeeble them by dissipation.
The demands of Truth are severe. She has no sympathy with the myrtles.
All _that _which is so indispensable in Song is precisely all _that
_with which _she _has nothing whatever to do. It is but making her a
flaunting paradox to wreathe her in gems and flowers. In enforcing a
truth we need severity rather than efflorescence of language. We must be
simple, precise, terse. We must be cool, calm, unimpassioned. In a
word, we must be in that mood which, as nearly as possible, is the
exact converse of the poetical. _He _must be blind indeed who does not
perceive the radical and chasmal difference between the truthful and the
poetical modes of inculcation. He must be theory-mad beyond redemption
who, in spite of these differences, shall still persist in attempting to
reconcile the obstinate oils and waters of Poetry and Truth.

Dividing the world of mind into its three most immediately obvious
distinctions, we have the Pure Intellect, Taste, and the Moral Sense. I
place Taste in the middle, because it is just this position which in the
mind it occupies. It holds intimate relations with either extreme;
but from the Moral Sense is separated by so faint a difference that
Aristotle has not hesitated to place some of its operations among the
virtues themselves. Nevertheless we find the _offices _of the trio
marked with a sufficient distinction. Just as the Intellect concerns
itself with Truth, so Taste informs us of the Beautiful, while the Moral
Sense is regardful of Duty. Of this latter, while Conscience teaches
the obligation, and Reason the expediency, Taste contents herself with
displaying the charms:--waging war upon Vice solely on the ground of
her deformity--her disproportion--her animosity to the fitting, to the
appropriate, to the harmonious--in a word, to Beauty.

An immortal instinct deep within the spirit of man is thus plainly a
sense of the Beautiful. This it is which administers to his delight in
the manifold forms, and sounds, and odors and sentiments amid which he
exists. And just as the lily is repeated in the lake, or the eyes of
Amaryllis in the mirror, so is the mere oral or written repetition
of these forms, and sounds, and colors, and odors, and sentiments a
duplicate source of the light. But this mere repetition is not poetry.
He who shall simply sing, with however glowing enthusiasm, or with
however vivid a truth of description, of the sights, and sounds, and
odors, and colors, and sentiments which greet _him _in common with all
mankind--he, I say, has yet failed to prove his divine title. There is
still a something in the distance which he has been unable to attain. We
have still a thirst unquenchable, to allay which he has not shown us the
crystal springs. This thirst belongs to the immortality of Man. It is at
once a consequence and an indication of his perennial existence. It is
the desire of the moth for the star. It is no mere appreciation of the
Beauty before us, but a wild effort to reach the Beauty above. Inspired
by an ecstatic prescience of the glories beyond the grave, we struggle
by multiform combinations among the things and thoughts of Time
to attain a portion of that Loveliness whose very elements perhaps
appertain to eternity alone. And thus when by Poetry, or when by Music,
the most entrancing of the poetic moods, we find ourselves melted into
tears, we weep then, not as the Abbate Gravina supposes, through excess
of pleasure, but through a certain petulant, impatient sorrow at our
inability to grasp now, wholly, here on earth, at once and for ever,
those divine and rapturous joys of which _through' _the poem, or
_through _the music, we attain to but brief and indeterminate glimpses.

The struggle to apprehend the supernal Loveliness--this struggle, on the
part of souls fittingly constituted--has given to the world all _that
_which it (the world) has ever been enabled at once to understand and
_to feel _as poetic.

The Poetic Sentiment, of course, may develop itself in various modes--in
Painting, in Sculpture, in Architecture, in the Dance--very especially
in Music--and very peculiarly, and with a wide field, in the com
position of the Landscape Garden. Our present theme, however, has regard
only to its manifestation in words. And here let me speak briefly on the
topic of rhythm. Contenting myself with the certainty that Music, in
its various modes of metre, rhythm, and rhyme, is of so vast a moment
in Poetry as never to be wisely rejected--is so vitally important an
adjunct, that he is simply silly who declines its assistance, I will not
now pause to maintain its absolute essentiality. It is in Music perhaps
that the soul most nearly attains the great end for which, when inspired
by the Poetic Sentiment, it struggles--the creation of supernal Beauty.
It _may _be, indeed, that here this sublime end is, now and then,
attained in _fact. _We are often made to feel, with a shivering delight,
that from an earthly harp are stricken notes which _cannot _have been
unfamiliar to the angels. And thus there can be little doubt that in
the union of Poetry with Music in its popular sense, we shall find the
widest field for the Poetic development. The old Bards and Minnesingers
had advantages which we do not possess--and Thomas Moore, singing his
own songs, was, in the most legitimate manner, perfecting them as poems.

To recapitulate then:--I would define, in brief, the Poetry of words as
_The Rhythmical Creation of Beauty. _Its sole arbiter is Taste. With
the Intellect or with the Conscience it has only collateral relations.
Unless incidentally, it has no concern whatever either with Duty or with
Truth.

A few words, however, in explanation. _That _pleasure which is at once
the most pure, the most elevating, and the most intense, is derived, I
maintain, from the contemplation of the Beautiful. In the contemplation
of Beauty we alone find it possible to attain that pleasurable
elevation, or excitement _of the soul, _which we recognize as the Poetic
Sentiment, and which is so easily distinguished from Truth, which is the
satisfaction of the Reason, or from Passion, which is the excitement of
the heart. I make Beauty, therefore--using the word as inclusive of the
sublime--I make Beauty the province of the poem, simply because it is an
obvious rule of Art that effects should be made to spring as directly
as possible from their causes:--no one as yet having been weak enough to
deny that the peculiar elevation in question is at least _most readily
_attainable in the poem. It by no means follows, however, that the
incitements of Passion' or the precepts of Duty, or even the lessons of
Truth, may not be introduced into a poem, and with advantage; for they
may subserve incidentally, in various ways, the general purposes of
the work: but the true artist will always contrive to tone them down in
proper subjection to that _Beauty _which is the atmosphere and the real
essence of the poem.

I cannot better introduce the few poems which I shall present for
your consideration, than by the citation of the Proem to Longfellow's
"Waif":--

The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an Eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me,
That my soul cannot resist;

A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.

For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavor;
And to-night I long for rest.

Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.

With no great range of imagination, these lines have been justly admired
for their delicacy of expression. Some of the images are very effective.
Nothing can be better than--

---------------the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Down the corridors of Time.

The idea of the last quatrain is also very effective. The poem on the
whole, however, is chiefly to be admired for the graceful _insouciance
_of its metre, so well in accordance with the character of the
sentiments, and especially for the _ease _of the general manner. This
"ease" or naturalness, in a literary style, it has long been the fashion
to regard as ease in appearance alone--as a point of really difficult
attainment. But not so:--a natural manner is difficult only to him who
should never meddle with it--to the unnatural. It is but the result of
writing with the understanding, or with the instinct, that _the tone,
_in composition, should always be that which the mass of mankind would
adopt--and must perpetually vary, of course, with the occasion. The
author who, after the fashion of "The North American Review," should
be upon _all _occasions merely "quiet," must necessarily upon _many
_occasions be simply silly, or stupid; and has no more right to be
considered "easy" or "natural" than a Cockney exquisite, or than the
sleeping Beauty in the waxworks.

Among the minor poems of Bryant, none has so much impressed me as the
one which he entitles "June. " I quote only a portion of it:--

There, through the long, long summer hours,
The golden light should lie,
And thick young herbs and groups of flowers
Stand in their beauty by.
The oriole should build and tell
His love-tale, close beside my cell;
The idle butterfly
Should rest him there, and there be heard
The housewife-bee and humming bird.

And what, if cheerful shouts at noon,
Come, from the village sent,
Or songs of maids, beneath the moon,
With fairy laughter blent?
And what if, in the evening light,
Betrothed lovers walk in sight
Of my low monument?
I would the lovely scene around
Might know no sadder sight nor sound.

I know, I know I should not see
The season's glorious show,
Nor would its brightness shine for me;
Nor its wild music flow;
But if, around my place of sleep,
The friends I love should come to weep,
They might not haste to go.
Soft airs and song, and the light and bloom,
Should keep them lingering by my tomb.

These to their soften'd hearts should bear
The thoughts of what has been,
And speak of one who cannot share
The gladness of the scene;
Whose part in all the pomp that fills
The circuit of the summer hills,
Is--that his grave is green;
And deeply would their hearts rejoice
To hear again his living voice.

The rhythmical flow here is even voluptuous--nothing could be more
melodious. The poem has always affected me in a remarkable manner. The
intense melancholy which seems to well up, perforce, to the surface of
all the poet's cheerful sayings about his grave, we find thrilling us to
the soul--while there is the truest poetic elevation in the thrill.
The impression left is one of a pleasurable sadness. And if, in the
remaining compositions which I shall introduce to you, there be more or
less of a similar tone always apparent, let me remind you that (how or
why we know not) this certain taint of sadness is inseparably connected
with all the higher manifestations of true Beauty. It is, nevertheless,

A feeling of sadness and longing
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.

The taint of which I speak is clearly perceptible even in a poem so full
of brilliancy and spirit as "The Health" of Edward Coate Pinckney:--

I fill this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,
A woman, of her gentle sex
The seeming paragon;
To whom the better elements
And kindly stars have given
A form so fair that, like the air,
'Tis less of earth than heaven.

Her every tone is music's own,
Like those of morning birds,
And something more than melody
Dwells ever in her words;
The coinage of her heart are they,
And from her lips each flows
As one may see the burden'd bee
Forth issue from the rose.

Affections are as thoughts to her,
The measures of her hours;
Her feelings have the flagrancy,
The freshness of young flowers;
And lovely passions, changing oft,
So fill her, she appears
The image of themselves by turns,--
The idol of past years!

Of her bright face one glance will trace
A picture on the brain,
And of her voice in echoing hearts
A sound must long remain;
But memory, such as mine of her,
So very much endears,
When death is nigh my latest sigh
Will not be life's, but hers.

I fill'd this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,
A woman, of her gentle sex
The seeming paragon--
Her health! and would on earth there stood,
Some more of such a frame,
That life might be all poetry,
And weariness a name.

It was the misfortune of Mr. Pinckney to have been born too far south.
Had he been a New Englander, it is probable that he would have been
ranked as the first of American lyrists by that magnanimous cabal which
has so long controlled the destinies of American Letters, in conducting
the thing called "The North American Review. " The poem just cited is
especially beautiful; but the poetic elevation which it induces we must
refer chiefly to our sympathy in the poet's enthusiasm. We pardon his
hyperboles for the evident earnestness with which they are uttered.

It was by no means my design, however, to expatiate upon the _merits
_of what I should read you. These will necessarily speak for themselves.
Boccalini, in his "Advertisements from Parnassus," tells us that Zoilus
once presented Apollo a very caustic criticism upon a very admirable
book:--whereupon the god asked him for the beauties of the work. He
replied that he only busied himself about the errors. On hearing this,
Apollo, handing him a sack of unwinnowed wheat, bade him pick out _all
the chaff _for his reward.

Now this fable answers very well as a hit at the critics--but I am by no
means sure that the god was in the right. I am by no means certain that
the true limits of the critical duty are not grossly misunderstood.
Excellence, in a poem especially, may be considered in the light of an
axiom, which need only be properly _put, _to become self-evident. It is
_not _excellence if it require to be demonstrated as such:--and thus to
point out too particularly the merits of a work of Art, is to admit that
they are _not _merits altogether.

Among the "Melodies" of Thomas Moore is one whose distinguished
character as a poem proper seems to have been singularly left out of
view. I allude to his lines beginning--"Come, rest in this bosom. "
The intense energy of their expression is not surpassed by anything in
Byron. There are two of the lines in which a sentiment is conveyed that
embodies the _all in all _of the divine passion of Love--a sentiment
which, perhaps, has found its echo in more, and in more passionate,
human hearts than any other single sentiment ever embodied in words:--

Come, rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer
Though the herd have fled from thee, thy home is still here;
Here still is the smile, that no cloud can o'ercast,
And a heart and a hand all thy own to the last.

Oh! what was love made for, if 'tis not the same
Through joy and through torment, through glory and shame?
I know not, I ask not, if guilt's in that heart,
I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art.

Thou hast call'd me thy Angel in moments of bliss,
And thy Angel I'll be, 'mid the horrors of this,--
Through the furnace, unshrinking, thy steps to pursue,
And shield thee, and save thee,--or perish there too!

It has been the fashion of late days to deny Moore Imagination, while
granting him Fancy--a distinction originating with Coleridge--than whom
no man more fully comprehended the great powers of Moore. The fact
is, that the fancy of this poet so far predominates over all his other
faculties, and over the fancy of all other men, as to have induced, very
naturally, the idea that he is fanciful _only. _But never was there a
greater mistake. Never was a grosser wrong done the fame of a true poet.
In the compass of the English language I can call to mind no poem more
profoundly--more weirdly _imaginative, _in the best sense, than the
lines commencing--"I would I were by that dim lake"--which are the com.
position of Thomas Moore. I regret that I am unable to remember them.

One of the noblest--and, speaking of Fancy--one of the most singularly
fanciful of modern poets, was Thomas Hood. His "Fair Ines" had always
for me an inexpressible charm:--

O saw ye not fair Ines?
She's gone into the West,
To dazzle when the sun is down,
And rob the world of rest;
She took our daylight with her,
The smiles that we love best,
With morning blushes on her cheek,
And pearls upon her breast.

O turn again, fair Ines,
Before the fall of night,
For fear the moon should shine alone,
And stars unrivalltd bright;
And blessed will the lover be
That walks beneath their light,
And breathes the love against thy cheek
I dare not even write!

Would I had been, fair Ines,
That gallant cavalier,
Who rode so gaily by thy side,
And whisper'd thee so near!
Were there no bonny dames at home
Or no true lovers here,
That he should cross the seas to win
The dearest of the dear?

I saw thee, lovely Ines,
Descend along the shore,
With bands of noble gentlemen,
And banners waved before;
And gentle youth and maidens gay,
And snowy plumes they wore;
It would have been a beauteous dream,
If it had been no more!

Alas, alas, fair Ines,
She went away with song,
With music waiting on her steps,
And shootings of the throng;
But some were sad and felt no mirth,
But only Music's wrong,
In sounds that sang Farewell, Farewell,
To her you've loved so long.

Farewell, farewell, fair Ines,
That vessel never bore
So fair a lady on its deck,
Nor danced so light before,--
Alas for pleasure on the sea,
And sorrow on the shorel
The smile that blest one lover's heart
Has broken many more!

"The Haunted House," by the same author, is one of the truest poems ever
written,--one of the truest, one of the most unexceptionable, one of the
most thoroughly artistic, both in its theme and in its execution. It
is, moreover, powerfully ideal--imaginative. I regret that its length
renders it unsuitable for the purposes of this lecture. In place of it
permit me to offer the universally appreciated "Bridge of Sighs":--

One more Unfortunate,
Weary of breath,
Rashly importunate
Gone to her death!

Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care;--
Fashion'd so slenderly,
Young and so fair!

Look at her garments
Clinging like cerements;
Whilst the wave constantly
Drips from her clothing;
Take her up instantly,
Loving not loathing.

Touch her not scornfully;
Think of her mournfully,
Gently and humanly;
Not of the stains of her,
All that remains of her
Now is pure womanly.

Make no deep scrutiny
Into her mutiny
Rash and undutiful;
Past all dishonor,
Death has left on her
Only the beautiful.

Where the lamps quiver
So far in the river,
With many a light
From window and casement
From garret to basement,
She stood, with amazement,
Houseless by night.

The bleak wind of March
Made her tremble and shiver,
But not the dark arch,
Or the black flowing river:
Mad from life's history,
Glad to death's mystery,
Swift to be hurl'd--
Anywhere, anywhere
Out of the world!
After a passage of what we feel to be
true poetry, there follows, inevitably, a passage of platitude which no
critical prejudgment can force us to admire; but if, upon completing
the work, we read it again, omitting the first book--that is to say,
commencing with the second--we shall be surprised at now finding
that admirable which we before condemned--that damnable which we had
previously so much admired. It follows from all this that the ultimate,
aggregate, or absolute effect of even the best epic under the sun, is a
nullity:--and this is precisely the fact.

In regard to the Iliad, we have, if not positive proof, at least very
good reason for believing it intended as a series of lyrics; but,
granting the epic intention, I can say only that the work is based in an
imperfect sense of art. The modern epic is, of the supposititious ancient
model, but an inconsiderate and blindfold imitation. But the day of
these artistic anomalies is over. If, at any time, any very long poem
_were _popular in reality, which I doubt, it is at least clear that no
very long poem will ever be popular again.

That the extent of a poetical work is, _ceteris paribus, _the measure
of its merit, seems undoubtedly, when we thus state it, a proposition
sufficiently absurd--yet we are indebted for it to the Quarterly
Reviews. Surely there can be nothing in mere _size, _abstractly
considered--there can be nothing in mere _bulk, so _far as a volume
is concerned, which has so continuously elicited admiration from these
saturnine pamphlets! A mountain, to be sure, by the mere sentiment of
physical magnitude which it conveys, _does _impress us with a sense
of the sublime--but no man is impressed after _this _fashion by the
material grandeur of even "The Columbiad. " Even the Quarterlies have
not instructed us to be so impressed by it. As _yet, _they have not
_insisted _on our estimating "Lamar" tine by the cubic foot, or Pollock
by the pound--but what else are we to _infer _from their continual
plating about "sustained effort"? If, by "sustained effort," any little
gentleman has accomplished an epic, let us frankly commend him for the
effort--if this indeed be a thing conk mendable--but let us forbear
praising the epic on the effort's account. It is to be hoped that common
sense, in the time to come, will prefer deciding upon a work of Art
rather by the impression it makes--by the effect it produces--than by
the time it took to impress the effect, or by the amount of "sustained
effort" which had been found necessary in effecting the impression. The
fact is, that perseverance is one thing and genius quite another--nor
can all the Quarterlies in Christendom confound them. By and by, this
proposition, with many which I have been just urging, will be received
as self-evident. In the meantime, by being generally condemned as
falsities, they will not be essentially damaged as truths.

On the other hand, it is clear that a poem may be improperly brief.
Undue brevity degenerates into mere epigrammatism. A very short poem,
while now and then producing a brilliant or vivid, never produces a
profound or enduring effect. There must be the steady pressing down
of the stamp upon the wax. De Beranger has wrought innumerable
things, pungent and spirit-stirring, but in general they have been too
imponderous to stamp themselves deeply into the public attention, and
thus, as so many feathers of fancy, have been blown aloft only to be
whistled down the wind.

A remarkable instance of the effect of undue brevity in depressing
a poem, in keeping it out of the popular view, is afforded by the
following exquisite little Serenade--

I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright.
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Has led me--who knows how? --
To thy chamber-window, sweet!

The wandering airs they faint
On the dark the silent stream--
The champak odors fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale's complaint,
It dies upon her heart,
As I must die on shine,
O, beloved as thou art!

O, lift me from the grass!
I die, I faint, I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast:
O, press it close to shine again,
Where it will break at last.

Very few perhaps are familiar with these lines--yet no less a poet
than Shelley is their author. Their warm, yet delicate and ethereal
imagination will be appreciated by all, but by none so thoroughly as by
him who has himself arisen from sweet dreams of one beloved to bathe in
the aromatic air of a southern midsummer night.

One of the finest poems by Willis--the very best in my opinion which
he has ever written--has no doubt, through this same defect of undue
brevity, been kept back from its proper position, not less in the

The shadows lay along Broadway,
'Twas near the twilight-tide--
And slowly there a lady fair
Was walking in her pride.
Alone walk'd she; but, viewlessly,
Walk'd spirits at her side.

Peace charm'd the street beneath her feet,
And Honor charm'd the air;
And all astir looked kind on her,
And called her good as fair--
For all God ever gave to her
She kept with chary care.

She kept with care her beauties rare
From lovers warm and true--
For heart was cold to all but gold,
And the rich came not to won,
But honor'd well her charms to sell.
If priests the selling do.

Now walking there was one more fair--
A slight girl, lily-pale;
And she had unseen company
To make the spirit quail--
'Twixt Want and Scorn she walk'd forlorn,
And nothing could avail.

No mercy now can clear her brow
From this world's peace to pray
For as love's wild prayer dissolved in air,
Her woman's heart gave way! --
But the sin forgiven by Christ in Heaven
By man is cursed alway!

In this composition we find it difficult to recognize the Willis who has
written so many mere "verses of society. " The lines are not only richly
ideal, but full of energy, while they breathe an earnestness, an evident
sincerity of sentiment, for which we look in vain throughout all the
other works of this author.

While the epic mania, while the idea that to merit in poetry prolixity
is indispensable, has for some years past been gradually dying out of
the public mind, by mere dint of its own absurdity, we find it succeeded
by a heresy too palpably false to be long tolerated, but one which,
in the brief period it has already endured, may be said to have
accomplished more in the corruption of our Poetical Literature than all
its other enemies combined. I allude to the heresy of _The Didactic. _It
has been assumed, tacitly and avowedly, directly and indirectly, that
the ultimate object of all Poetry is Truth. Every poem, it is said,
should inculcate a morals and by this moral is the poetical merit of the
work to be adjudged. We Americans especially have patronized this happy
idea, and we Bostonians very especially have developed it in full. We
have taken it into our heads that to write a poem simply for the poem's
sake, and to acknowledge such to have been our design, would be to
confess ourselves radically wanting in the true poetic dignity and
force:--but the simple fact is that would we but permit ourselves to
look into our own souls we should immediately there discover that under
the sun there neither exists nor _can _exist any work more thoroughly
dignified, more supremely noble, than this very poem, this poem _per se,
_this poem which is a poem and nothing more, this poem written solely
for the poem's sake.

With as deep a reverence for the True as ever inspired the bosom of man,
I would nevertheless limit, in some measure, its modes of inculcation.
I would limit to enforce them. I would not enfeeble them by dissipation.
The demands of Truth are severe. She has no sympathy with the myrtles.
All _that _which is so indispensable in Song is precisely all _that
_with which _she _has nothing whatever to do. It is but making her a
flaunting paradox to wreathe her in gems and flowers. In enforcing a
truth we need severity rather than efflorescence of language. We must be
simple, precise, terse. We must be cool, calm, unimpassioned. In a
word, we must be in that mood which, as nearly as possible, is the
exact converse of the poetical. _He _must be blind indeed who does not
perceive the radical and chasmal difference between the truthful and the
poetical modes of inculcation. He must be theory-mad beyond redemption
who, in spite of these differences, shall still persist in attempting to
reconcile the obstinate oils and waters of Poetry and Truth.

Dividing the world of mind into its three most immediately obvious
distinctions, we have the Pure Intellect, Taste, and the Moral Sense. I
place Taste in the middle, because it is just this position which in the
mind it occupies. It holds intimate relations with either extreme;
but from the Moral Sense is separated by so faint a difference that
Aristotle has not hesitated to place some of its operations among the
virtues themselves. Nevertheless we find the _offices _of the trio
marked with a sufficient distinction. Just as the Intellect concerns
itself with Truth, so Taste informs us of the Beautiful, while the Moral
Sense is regardful of Duty. Of this latter, while Conscience teaches
the obligation, and Reason the expediency, Taste contents herself with
displaying the charms:--waging war upon Vice solely on the ground of
her deformity--her disproportion--her animosity to the fitting, to the
appropriate, to the harmonious--in a word, to Beauty.

An immortal instinct deep within the spirit of man is thus plainly a
sense of the Beautiful. This it is which administers to his delight in
the manifold forms, and sounds, and odors and sentiments amid which he
exists. And just as the lily is repeated in the lake, or the eyes of
Amaryllis in the mirror, so is the mere oral or written repetition
of these forms, and sounds, and colors, and odors, and sentiments a
duplicate source of the light. But this mere repetition is not poetry.
He who shall simply sing, with however glowing enthusiasm, or with
however vivid a truth of description, of the sights, and sounds, and
odors, and colors, and sentiments which greet _him _in common with all
mankind--he, I say, has yet failed to prove his divine title. There is
still a something in the distance which he has been unable to attain. We
have still a thirst unquenchable, to allay which he has not shown us the
crystal springs. This thirst belongs to the immortality of Man. It is at
once a consequence and an indication of his perennial existence. It is
the desire of the moth for the star. It is no mere appreciation of the
Beauty before us, but a wild effort to reach the Beauty above. Inspired
by an ecstatic prescience of the glories beyond the grave, we struggle
by multiform combinations among the things and thoughts of Time
to attain a portion of that Loveliness whose very elements perhaps
appertain to eternity alone. And thus when by Poetry, or when by Music,
the most entrancing of the poetic moods, we find ourselves melted into
tears, we weep then, not as the Abbate Gravina supposes, through excess
of pleasure, but through a certain petulant, impatient sorrow at our
inability to grasp now, wholly, here on earth, at once and for ever,
those divine and rapturous joys of which _through' _the poem, or
_through _the music, we attain to but brief and indeterminate glimpses.

The struggle to apprehend the supernal Loveliness--this struggle, on the
part of souls fittingly constituted--has given to the world all _that
_which it (the world) has ever been enabled at once to understand and
_to feel _as poetic.

The Poetic Sentiment, of course, may develop itself in various modes--in
Painting, in Sculpture, in Architecture, in the Dance--very especially
in Music--and very peculiarly, and with a wide field, in the com
position of the Landscape Garden. Our present theme, however, has regard
only to its manifestation in words. And here let me speak briefly on the
topic of rhythm. Contenting myself with the certainty that Music, in
its various modes of metre, rhythm, and rhyme, is of so vast a moment
in Poetry as never to be wisely rejected--is so vitally important an
adjunct, that he is simply silly who declines its assistance, I will not
now pause to maintain its absolute essentiality. It is in Music perhaps
that the soul most nearly attains the great end for which, when inspired
by the Poetic Sentiment, it struggles--the creation of supernal Beauty.
It _may _be, indeed, that here this sublime end is, now and then,
attained in _fact. _We are often made to feel, with a shivering delight,
that from an earthly harp are stricken notes which _cannot _have been
unfamiliar to the angels. And thus there can be little doubt that in
the union of Poetry with Music in its popular sense, we shall find the
widest field for the Poetic development. The old Bards and Minnesingers
had advantages which we do not possess--and Thomas Moore, singing his
own songs, was, in the most legitimate manner, perfecting them as poems.

To recapitulate then:--I would define, in brief, the Poetry of words as
_The Rhythmical Creation of Beauty. _Its sole arbiter is Taste. With
the Intellect or with the Conscience it has only collateral relations.
Unless incidentally, it has no concern whatever either with Duty or with
Truth.

A few words, however, in explanation. _That _pleasure which is at once
the most pure, the most elevating, and the most intense, is derived, I
maintain, from the contemplation of the Beautiful. In the contemplation
of Beauty we alone find it possible to attain that pleasurable
elevation, or excitement _of the soul, _which we recognize as the Poetic
Sentiment, and which is so easily distinguished from Truth, which is the
satisfaction of the Reason, or from Passion, which is the excitement of
the heart. I make Beauty, therefore--using the word as inclusive of the
sublime--I make Beauty the province of the poem, simply because it is an
obvious rule of Art that effects should be made to spring as directly
as possible from their causes:--no one as yet having been weak enough to
deny that the peculiar elevation in question is at least _most readily
_attainable in the poem. It by no means follows, however, that the
incitements of Passion' or the precepts of Duty, or even the lessons of
Truth, may not be introduced into a poem, and with advantage; for they
may subserve incidentally, in various ways, the general purposes of
the work: but the true artist will always contrive to tone them down in
proper subjection to that _Beauty _which is the atmosphere and the real
essence of the poem.

I cannot better introduce the few poems which I shall present for
your consideration, than by the citation of the Proem to Longfellow's
"Waif":--

The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an Eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me,
That my soul cannot resist;

A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.

For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavor;
And to-night I long for rest.

Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.

With no great range of imagination, these lines have been justly admired
for their delicacy of expression. Some of the images are very effective.
Nothing can be better than--

---------------the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Down the corridors of Time.

The idea of the last quatrain is also very effective. The poem on the
whole, however, is chiefly to be admired for the graceful _insouciance
_of its metre, so well in accordance with the character of the
sentiments, and especially for the _ease _of the general manner. This
"ease" or naturalness, in a literary style, it has long been the fashion
to regard as ease in appearance alone--as a point of really difficult
attainment. But not so:--a natural manner is difficult only to him who
should never meddle with it--to the unnatural. It is but the result of
writing with the understanding, or with the instinct, that _the tone,
_in composition, should always be that which the mass of mankind would
adopt--and must perpetually vary, of course, with the occasion. The
author who, after the fashion of "The North American Review," should
be upon _all _occasions merely "quiet," must necessarily upon _many
_occasions be simply silly, or stupid; and has no more right to be
considered "easy" or "natural" than a Cockney exquisite, or than the
sleeping Beauty in the waxworks.

Among the minor poems of Bryant, none has so much impressed me as the
one which he entitles "June. " I quote only a portion of it:--

There, through the long, long summer hours,
The golden light should lie,
And thick young herbs and groups of flowers
Stand in their beauty by.
The oriole should build and tell
His love-tale, close beside my cell;
The idle butterfly
Should rest him there, and there be heard
The housewife-bee and humming bird.

And what, if cheerful shouts at noon,
Come, from the village sent,
Or songs of maids, beneath the moon,
With fairy laughter blent?
And what if, in the evening light,
Betrothed lovers walk in sight
Of my low monument?
I would the lovely scene around
Might know no sadder sight nor sound.

I know, I know I should not see
The season's glorious show,
Nor would its brightness shine for me;
Nor its wild music flow;
But if, around my place of sleep,
The friends I love should come to weep,
They might not haste to go.
Soft airs and song, and the light and bloom,
Should keep them lingering by my tomb.

These to their soften'd hearts should bear
The thoughts of what has been,
And speak of one who cannot share
The gladness of the scene;
Whose part in all the pomp that fills
The circuit of the summer hills,
Is--that his grave is green;
And deeply would their hearts rejoice
To hear again his living voice.

The rhythmical flow here is even voluptuous--nothing could be more
melodious. The poem has always affected me in a remarkable manner. The
intense melancholy which seems to well up, perforce, to the surface of
all the poet's cheerful sayings about his grave, we find thrilling us to
the soul--while there is the truest poetic elevation in the thrill.
The impression left is one of a pleasurable sadness. And if, in the
remaining compositions which I shall introduce to you, there be more or
less of a similar tone always apparent, let me remind you that (how or
why we know not) this certain taint of sadness is inseparably connected
with all the higher manifestations of true Beauty. It is, nevertheless,

A feeling of sadness and longing
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.

The taint of which I speak is clearly perceptible even in a poem so full
of brilliancy and spirit as "The Health" of Edward Coate Pinckney:--

I fill this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,
A woman, of her gentle sex
The seeming paragon;
To whom the better elements
And kindly stars have given
A form so fair that, like the air,
'Tis less of earth than heaven.

Her every tone is music's own,
Like those of morning birds,
And something more than melody
Dwells ever in her words;
The coinage of her heart are they,
And from her lips each flows
As one may see the burden'd bee
Forth issue from the rose.

Affections are as thoughts to her,
The measures of her hours;
Her feelings have the flagrancy,
The freshness of young flowers;
And lovely passions, changing oft,
So fill her, she appears
The image of themselves by turns,--
The idol of past years!

Of her bright face one glance will trace
A picture on the brain,
And of her voice in echoing hearts
A sound must long remain;
But memory, such as mine of her,
So very much endears,
When death is nigh my latest sigh
Will not be life's, but hers.

I fill'd this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,
A woman, of her gentle sex
The seeming paragon--
Her health! and would on earth there stood,
Some more of such a frame,
That life might be all poetry,
And weariness a name.

It was the misfortune of Mr. Pinckney to have been born too far south.
Had he been a New Englander, it is probable that he would have been
ranked as the first of American lyrists by that magnanimous cabal which
has so long controlled the destinies of American Letters, in conducting
the thing called "The North American Review. " The poem just cited is
especially beautiful; but the poetic elevation which it induces we must
refer chiefly to our sympathy in the poet's enthusiasm. We pardon his
hyperboles for the evident earnestness with which they are uttered.

It was by no means my design, however, to expatiate upon the _merits
_of what I should read you. These will necessarily speak for themselves.
Boccalini, in his "Advertisements from Parnassus," tells us that Zoilus
once presented Apollo a very caustic criticism upon a very admirable
book:--whereupon the god asked him for the beauties of the work. He
replied that he only busied himself about the errors. On hearing this,
Apollo, handing him a sack of unwinnowed wheat, bade him pick out _all
the chaff _for his reward.

Now this fable answers very well as a hit at the critics--but I am by no
means sure that the god was in the right. I am by no means certain that
the true limits of the critical duty are not grossly misunderstood.
Excellence, in a poem especially, may be considered in the light of an
axiom, which need only be properly _put, _to become self-evident. It is
_not _excellence if it require to be demonstrated as such:--and thus to
point out too particularly the merits of a work of Art, is to admit that
they are _not _merits altogether.

Among the "Melodies" of Thomas Moore is one whose distinguished
character as a poem proper seems to have been singularly left out of
view. I allude to his lines beginning--"Come, rest in this bosom. "
The intense energy of their expression is not surpassed by anything in
Byron. There are two of the lines in which a sentiment is conveyed that
embodies the _all in all _of the divine passion of Love--a sentiment
which, perhaps, has found its echo in more, and in more passionate,
human hearts than any other single sentiment ever embodied in words:--

Come, rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer
Though the herd have fled from thee, thy home is still here;
Here still is the smile, that no cloud can o'ercast,
And a heart and a hand all thy own to the last.

Oh! what was love made for, if 'tis not the same
Through joy and through torment, through glory and shame?
I know not, I ask not, if guilt's in that heart,
I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art.

Thou hast call'd me thy Angel in moments of bliss,
And thy Angel I'll be, 'mid the horrors of this,--
Through the furnace, unshrinking, thy steps to pursue,
And shield thee, and save thee,--or perish there too!

It has been the fashion of late days to deny Moore Imagination, while
granting him Fancy--a distinction originating with Coleridge--than whom
no man more fully comprehended the great powers of Moore. The fact
is, that the fancy of this poet so far predominates over all his other
faculties, and over the fancy of all other men, as to have induced, very
naturally, the idea that he is fanciful _only. _But never was there a
greater mistake. Never was a grosser wrong done the fame of a true poet.
In the compass of the English language I can call to mind no poem more
profoundly--more weirdly _imaginative, _in the best sense, than the
lines commencing--"I would I were by that dim lake"--which are the com.
position of Thomas Moore. I regret that I am unable to remember them.

One of the noblest--and, speaking of Fancy--one of the most singularly
fanciful of modern poets, was Thomas Hood. His "Fair Ines" had always
for me an inexpressible charm:--

O saw ye not fair Ines?
She's gone into the West,
To dazzle when the sun is down,
And rob the world of rest;
She took our daylight with her,
The smiles that we love best,
With morning blushes on her cheek,
And pearls upon her breast.

O turn again, fair Ines,
Before the fall of night,
For fear the moon should shine alone,
And stars unrivalltd bright;
And blessed will the lover be
That walks beneath their light,
And breathes the love against thy cheek
I dare not even write!

Would I had been, fair Ines,
That gallant cavalier,
Who rode so gaily by thy side,
And whisper'd thee so near!
Were there no bonny dames at home
Or no true lovers here,
That he should cross the seas to win
The dearest of the dear?

I saw thee, lovely Ines,
Descend along the shore,
With bands of noble gentlemen,
And banners waved before;
And gentle youth and maidens gay,
And snowy plumes they wore;
It would have been a beauteous dream,
If it had been no more!

Alas, alas, fair Ines,
She went away with song,
With music waiting on her steps,
And shootings of the throng;
But some were sad and felt no mirth,
But only Music's wrong,
In sounds that sang Farewell, Farewell,
To her you've loved so long.

Farewell, farewell, fair Ines,
That vessel never bore
So fair a lady on its deck,
Nor danced so light before,--
Alas for pleasure on the sea,
And sorrow on the shorel
The smile that blest one lover's heart
Has broken many more!

"The Haunted House," by the same author, is one of the truest poems ever
written,--one of the truest, one of the most unexceptionable, one of the
most thoroughly artistic, both in its theme and in its execution. It
is, moreover, powerfully ideal--imaginative. I regret that its length
renders it unsuitable for the purposes of this lecture. In place of it
permit me to offer the universally appreciated "Bridge of Sighs":--

One more Unfortunate,
Weary of breath,
Rashly importunate
Gone to her death!

Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care;--
Fashion'd so slenderly,
Young and so fair!

Look at her garments
Clinging like cerements;
Whilst the wave constantly
Drips from her clothing;
Take her up instantly,
Loving not loathing.

Touch her not scornfully;
Think of her mournfully,
Gently and humanly;
Not of the stains of her,
All that remains of her
Now is pure womanly.

Make no deep scrutiny
Into her mutiny
Rash and undutiful;
Past all dishonor,
Death has left on her
Only the beautiful.

Where the lamps quiver
So far in the river,
With many a light
From window and casement
From garret to basement,
She stood, with amazement,
Houseless by night.

The bleak wind of March
Made her tremble and shiver,
But not the dark arch,
Or the black flowing river:
Mad from life's history,
Glad to death's mystery,
Swift to be hurl'd--
Anywhere, anywhere
Out of the world!

In she plunged boldly,
No matter how coldly
The rough river ran,--
Over the brink of it,
Picture it,--think of it,
Dissolute Man!
Lave in it, drink of it
Then, if you can!

Still, for all slips of hers,
One of Eve's family--
Wipe those poor lips of hers
Oozing so clammily,
Loop up her tresses
Escaped from the comb,
Her fair auburn tresses;
Whilst wonderment guesses
Where was her home?

Who was her father?
Who was her mother?
Had she a sister?
Had she a brother?
Or was there a dearer one
Still, and a nearer one
Yet, than all other?

Alas! for the rarity
Of Christian charity
Under the sun!
Oh! it was pitiful!
Near a whole city full,
Home she had none.

Sisterly, brotherly,
Fatherly, motherly,
Feelings had changed:
Love, by harsh evidence,
Thrown from its eminence;
Even God's providence
Seeming estranged.

Take her up tenderly;
Lift her with care;
Fashion'd so slenderly,
Young, and so fair!