Letters and Social Aims Read Online

Ever as the thought mounts, the expression mounts. T is cumulative also; the poem is made up of lines each of which fill the ear of the poet in its turn, so that mere synthesis produces a work quite superhuman.

Indeed, the masters sometimes rise above themselves to strains which charm their readers, and which neither any competitor could outdo, nor the bard himself again equal. Try this strain of Beaumont and Fletcher:—

Keats disclosed by certain lines in his “Hyperion” this inward skill; and Coleridge showed at least his love and appetency for it. It appears in Ben Jonson's songs, including certainly “The faery beam upon you,” etc., Waller's “Go, lovely rose!” Herbert's “Virtue” and “Easter,” and Lovelace's lines “To Althea” and “To Lucasta,” and Collins's “Ode to Evening,” all but the last verse, which is academical. Perhaps this dainty style of poetry is not producible to-day, any more than a right Gothic cathedral. It belonged to a time and taste which is not in the world.

As the imagination is not a talent of some men but is the health of every man, so also is this joy of musical expression. I know the pride of mathematicians and materialists, but they cannot conceal from me their capital want. The critic, the philosopher, is a failed poet. Gray avows that “he thinks even a bad verse as good a thing or better than the best observation that was ever made on it.” I honor the naturalist; I honor the geometer, but he has before him higher power and happiness than he knows. Yet we will leave to the masters their own forms. Newton may be permitted to call Terence a play-book, and to wonder at the frivolous taste for rhymers; he only predicts, one would say, a grander poetry: he only shows that he is not yet reached; that the poetry which satisfies more youthful souls is not such to a mind like his, accustomed to grander harmonies;—this being a child's whistle to his ear; that the music must rise to a loftier strain, up to Handel, up to Beethoven, up to the thorough-base of the sea-shore, up to the largeness of astronomy: at last that great heart will hear in the music beats like its own; the waves of melody will wash and float him also, and set him into concert and harmony.

Bards and Trouveurs.—The metallic force of primitive words makes the superiority of the remains of the rude ages. It costs the early bard little talent to chant more impressively than the later, more cultivated poets. His advantage is that his words are things, each the lucky sound which described the fact, and we listen to him as we do to the Indian, or the hunter, or miner, each of whom represents his facts as accurately as the cry of the wolf or the eagle tells of the forest or the air they inhabit. The original force, the direct smell of the earth or the sea, is in these ancient poems, the Sagas of the North, the Nibelungen Lied, the songs and ballads of the English and Scotch.

I find or fancy more true poetry, the love of the vast and the ideal, in the Welsh and bardic fragments of Taliessin and his successors, than in many volumes of British Classics. An intrepid magniloquence appears in all the bards, as:—

A favorable specimen is Taliessin's “Invocation of the Wind” at the door of Castle Teganwy:—

In one of his poems he asks:—

He says of his hero, Cunedda,—

To another,—

Of an enemy,—

“The cauldron of the sea was bordered round by his land, but it would not boil the food of a coward.”

To an exile on an island he says,—

“The heavy blue chain of the sea didst thou, O just man, endure.”

Another bard in like tone says,—

“I am possessed of songs such as no son of man can repeat; one of them is called the ‘Helper;’ it will help thee at thy need in sickness, grief, and all adversities. I know a song which I need only to sing when men have loaded me with bonds: when I sing it, my chains fall in pieces and I walk forth at liberty.”

The Norsemen have no less faith in poetry and its power, when they describe it thus:—

“Odin spoke everything in rhyme. He and his temple-gods were called song-smiths. He could make his enemies in battle blind or deaf, and their weapons so blunt that they could no more cut than a willow-twig. Odin taught these arts in runes or songs, which are called incantations.”

The Crusades brought out the genius of France, in the twelfth century, when Pierre d'Auvergne said,—

“I will sing a new song which resounds in my breast: never was a song good or beautiful which resembled any other.”

And Pons de Capdeuil declares,—

“Since the air renews itself and softens, so must my heart renew itself, and what buds in it buds and grows outside of it.”

There is in every poem a height which attracts more than other parts, and is best remembered. Thus, in “Morte d'Arthur,” I remember nothing so well as Sir Gawain's parley with Merlin in his Wonderful prison:—

“After the disappearance of Merlin from King Athur's court he was seriously missed, and many knighta set out in search of him. Among others was Sir Gawain, who pursued his search till it was time to return to the court. He came into the forest of Broceliande, lamenting as he went along. Presently he heard the voice of one groaning on his right hand; looking that way, he could see nothing save a kind of smoke which seemed like air, and through which he could not pass; and this impediment made him so wrathful that it deprived him of speech. Presently he heard a voice which said, ‘Gawain, Gawain, be not out of heart, for everything which must happen will come to pass.’ And when he heard the voice which thus called him by his right name, he replied, ‘Who can this be who hath spoken to me?’ ‘How,’ said the voice, ‘Sir Gawain, know you me not? You were wont to know me well, but thus things are interwoven and thus the proverb says true, “Leave the court and the court will leave you.” So is it with me. Whilst I served King Arthur, I was well known by you and by other barons, but because I have left the court, I am known no longer, and put in forgetfulness, which I ought not to be if faith reigned in the world. When Sir Gawain heard the voice which spoke to him thus, he thought it was Merlin, and he answered, ‘Sir, certes I ought to know you well, for many times I have heard your words. I pray you appear before me so that I may be able to recognize you.’; ‘Ah, sir,’ said Merlin, ‘you will never see me more, and that grieves me, but I cannot remedy it, and when you shall have departed from this place, I shall nevermore speak to you nor to any other person, save only my mistress; for never other person will be able to discover this place for anything which may befall; neither shall I ever go out from hence, for in the world there is no such strong tower as this wherein I am confined; and it is neither of wood, nor of iron, nor of stone, but of air, without anything else; and made by enchantment so strong that it can never be demolished while the world lasts; neither can I go out, nor can any one come in, save she who hath enclosed me here and who. keeps me company when it pleaseth her: she cometh when she listeth, for her will is here.’ ‘How, Merlin, my good friend,’ said Sir Gawain, ‘are you restrained so strongly that you cannot deliver yourself nor make yourself visible unto me; how can this happen, seeing that you are the wisest man in the world?’ Rather,' said Merlin, ‘the greatest fool; for I well knew that all this would befall me, and I have been fool enough to love another more than myself, for I taught my mistress that whereby she hath imprisoned me in such a manner that none can set me free.’ ‘Certes, Merlin,’ replied Sir Gawain, ‘of that I am right sorrowful, and so will King Arthur, my uncle, be, when he shall know it, as one who is making search after you throughout all countries.’ ‘Well,’ said Merlin, ‘it must be borne, for never will he see me, nor I him; neither will any one speak with me again after you, it would be vain to attempt it; for you yourself, when you have turned away, will never be able to find the place: but salute for me the king and the queen and all the barons, and tell them of my condition, You will find the king at Carduel in Wales; and when you arrive there you will find there all the companions who departed with you, and who at this day will return. Now then go in the name of God, who will protect and save the King Arthur, and the realm of Logres, and you also, as the best knights who are in the world.’ With that Sir Gawain departed joyful and sorrowful; joyful because of what Merlin had assured him should happen to him, and sorrowful that Merlin had thus been lost.”

Morals.— We are sometimes apprised that there is a mental power and creation more excellent than anything which is commonly called philosophy and literature; that the high poets, that Homer, Milton, Shakspeare, do not fully content us. How rarely they offer us the heavenly bread! The most they have done is to intoxicate us once and again with its taste.