Stacks Pref. Karl Litzenberg (Estate) 2-17-70 818727-291 DEDICATED THE POETS Of All Ages anD OF ALL LANDS, Who heard through the roar of mortal things Saw the world-wonder rise and fall, And knew that Beauty made it all. The poet is one who "inscribes things unapparent in apparent fabrications." -Zoroaster "The purpose of the artist [poet] is to complete the incomplete designs of nature." -Aristotle "The origin of poetry lies in a thirst for a wilder beauty than earth supplies." -Edgar Allan Poe "Poetry is that impassioned arrangement of words (whether in verse or prose) which embodies the exaltation, the beauty, the rhythm, and the pathetic truth of life." -Richard Le Gallienne "Poetry is the expression-under the light of the imagination-of the unfamiliar beauty of the world, the beauty that is the smile upon the face of truth'. Poetry is the revelation of the strange in the familiar, of the eternal in the transitory. It is the impassioned cry of the heart in the presence of the wonder of life." -Edwin Markham A Brief Glance at Poetry-its Nature, Use and History ERTAIN critics are saying that poetry is doomed CERT to perish, to be sponged out by the hand of science. As well say that poetry will obliterate science, for each stands on its own ground, separate and secure, coequal, eternal, like Jungfrau and Matterhorn. Others, again, are saying that the world of poetry has been exhausted by the poets themselves-that nothing new is left to see or to say. But these, too, are idle words. When Homer had given Troy to flame and immortality, no doubt there were those who said, "Poetry can no farther go." But after Homer was Eschylus, who came with gorgeous tragedy and sceptered pall; Dante, who journeyed the laborious way from the Infernal Pit up to the Rose of the Blessed; Shakespeare, who disclosed to us the long, sad, glad, mad procession of humanity. And who shall say that a fellow of these, if not a greater, shall not yet appear? Humanity is infinite, nature inexhaustible; the world is still young, wonderful, unfathomable. In spite of the searchlight of science, life is still veiled in immense mystery. Who has uttered all the secret of the sea, all the confidences of the stately, primeval woods? Who has given us all the youth and wonder of the morning? Who has pillaged all the flaming beauty of the sunset? And has not the heart of man grown yet deeper, more unsearchable, with the process of the suns? Shall poetry perish? No; we have had as yet but the first few golden syllables of the inexhaustible Song of Life-the song out of whose mighty vortex the universe arose. ix But who is the poet, the man who comes speaking some syllable of this mighty song? Certainly he is not a mere molder of golden meters and sugared rhymes; "a pleader of lovely and pleasant causes, nothing perilous." No; if he is a poet worth while he enters with serious steps the chambers and gardens of the Muses. In his loftier moods, his words may well be said to be oracular. He is frequently a voice of protest and of prophecy. In the youth of the world he appeared to his people as the impassioned seer. Religion, in the Vedas, the Eddas, the Scriptures, descended as a song, as a poetic vision of the Creative Man. How far away from this august ideal of the poet is that cheap conception of him as a dexterous dilettante, a dainty ornament of the drawing-room, a picturesque lounger in a tavern, a dreamy idler mooning on a bank of violets. Yes; in his true function, he is one of the substantial forces in the world-movement, essential to the growth and glory of a people. These men of earth -buried in grim commercialism-are usually poor, pitifully poor, in heroic emotions, in daring conjectures, in splendid dreams, in spiritual inlookings; so the poet (touched by some God) has the power to give men this rich and varied treasure, something immortal and starry. Of course, it is not alone this lofty bard for whom there is need and place. There is room also for the homely near-by poet, with his humbler ministries-for the wren that nests near the ground, as for the skylark that soars upward to dwell an immortal moment in the ecstatic "privacies of light." So delicate, so daring, so elusive a craftsman as the poet can be described only imperfectly, and then only by the use of many changing metaphors. The poet is a |