"
AFTER TRYING A CERTAIN BOOK
I tried to read a beautifully printed and scholarly volume on "the
Theory of Poetry," received by mail this morning from England--but
gave it up at last for a bad job. Here are some capricious pencillings
that follow'd, as I find them in my notes:
In youth and maturity Poems are charged with sunshine and varied pomp
of day; but as the soul more and more takes precedence, (the sensuous
still included,) the Dusk becomes the poet's atmosphere. I too have
sought, and ever seek, the brilliant sun, and make my songs according.
But as I grow old, the half-lights of evening are far more to me.
The play of Imagination, with the sensuous objects of Nature for
symbols and Faith--with Love and Pride as the unseen impetus and
moving-power of all, make up the curious chess-game of a poem.
Common teachers or critics are always asking "What does it mean?"
Symphony of fine musician, or sunset, or sea-waves rolling up the
beach--what do they mean? Undoubtedly in the most subtle-elusive sense
they mean something--as love does, and religion does, and the best
poem;--but who shall fathom and define those meanings? (I do not
intend this as a warrant for wildness and frantic escapades--but to
justify the soul's frequent joy in what cannot be defined to the
intellectual part, or to calculation.)
At its best, poetic lore is like what may be heard of conversation in
the dusk, from speakers far or hid, of which we get only a few broken
murmurs.
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