Having from early
manhood abandon'd the business pursuits and applications usual in my
time and country, and obediently yielded myself up ever since to the
impetus mention'd, and to the work of expressing those ideas, it may
be that mere habit has got dominion of me, when there is no real need
of saying anything further. But what is life but an experiment? and
mortality but an exercise? with reference to results beyond. And so
shall my poems be. If incomplete here, and superfluous there, _n'
importe_--the earnest trial and persistent exploration shall at least
be mine, and other success failing shall be success enough. I have
been more anxious, anyhow, to suggest the songs of vital endeavor and
manly evolution, and furnish something for races of outdoor athletes,
than to make perfect rhymes, or reign in the parlors. I ventur'd
from the beginning my own way, taking chances--and would keep on
venturing.
I will therefore not conceal from any persons, known or unknown to
me, who take an interest in the matter, that I have the ambition of
devoting yet a few years to poetic composition. The mighty present
age! To absorb and express in poetry, anything of it--of its world
--America--cities and States--the years, the events of our Nineteeth
century--the rapidity of movement--the violent contrasts, fluctuations
of light and shade, of hope and fear--the entire revolution made by
science in the poetic method--these great new underlying facts and new
ideas rushing and spreading everywhere;--truly a mighty age! As if in
some colossal drama, acted again like those of old under the open sun,
the Nations of our time, and all the characteristics of Civilization,
seem hurrying, stalking across, flitting from wing to wing, gathering,
closing up, toward some long-prepared, most tremendous denouement.
Pages:
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467