, 1872-12-28

lsned 1n q newspaper. Is there not Some touch OF
intellectual aristocracy?
MAGAZINE POETRY
will not often bear transplanting, although it is
good enough for the t1eeting pleasure Of tho
moment, aud good enough for magazine-re.dere.
between the covers of our monthly illustrated
newspapers that is worth repeating. Such WAS
T. B. Aldrich's Untimely Thought" !" in tie last
Atlantic; and this little verse in Scri6ner's will
not dlsp1case even severe taste. It is from
the musical pen of Christina Rossotti:
nup-soSo.
Oil last summer, green things wera greene-,
Efanbles fewer, the blue sky bucT.
It's wen-nigh summer, for there's swallow;
Come one swallow, his mate will follow,
The bird-race quicken and wheel and thlckea.
Oh, happy swallow, whose mate will follow
Der height, DER hollow I'd be swallow
To build, this weather, nest together!
G. c, Stedman, in his article Oh
THE VICTORIAN POETS"
expresses the hope that tho relations between
poetry and science, which press for coneidera-
t1on at every turn and OUTPOST, may lead to Z.
;sew and grander manifestation of the Eternal
Muse. Coleridse hns defined poetry to be thu
anhthesis OF science; but science modern think
ers find out to be the expression Of mathematics
and formulas alone. It is widening its circles to
kindred not alone to figures, but to
the, imagination. Poets, who as ye.
pasture only along the byways their
predecessors trod. and know nothing Of science,
do not yet clearly SEQ the union between the
latter and their art; but men like Spencer and
Tyndall vino have achieved tho grander sweeps
of investigation and insight, are uucoycring
field for fancy which ahall give us q song of
new sweetness and strange power. It is true,
as stedman says, that,-
n he
thought, refinement, and material progress have
moved along together. The modern student often has
unjust to the poet than the latter IVES Of Old tho
philosopher. Art has seemed mere psstimo and
anueement as once seemed the devils frppery and
seduction to the ascetic soul Of the Puritan ago with
tie gloomy rapturous mysteries Of his theology
Also by the multitude whom tho practical results
Ct science at last have thoroughly won over and who
now are iupeled by more than Roman ambition to
grde The earh with engineering aud conquer the ele-
ments the songsters tho ,neta
physcians but the physical Investigators and Of
action held to be the worlds great men. The D.
Lessepe, Fields, Barings, md vanderbilts, no less
oi to-day. Religion ad tseoeey aso, ape snbected
to analysis aud the universal tests and at last the d.
vine and the poet traltionaly at loggerheads have
hafdiEguised contempt. Eating together at the side
tables, neither is adequately consoled by rejecting
that the other Is to be enyied than
himself. The poets hold upon the youthful
urably relaxed for Professor Huxley, who regards po-
qualification Of the aesthetic perception Of little
worth, grossly underrated his position when said
to tic cultivation of the Of expression ind Of the
sensea Of literary beauty" The truth Is that o1r
Darwin, Huxley, aud Youmnns under their arms; or
if they carry Tennyson, Longfellow and Morris, read
them in the Light Of spectrum ana!ysis or test them by
modern poetry TO wreak ta thoughts upon c1pression
Of which Huxley SO complains, naturally fol-
ed Ideals, reducing it to skillful nyaiIment
Of the laws Of form and melody Ay, the poets,
with their intensely sympathetic natures, hare cauRnt
the spirit OF the age aud pronounce the verdict against
themselves. The more intellectual will confess to you
that they weary less Of new essay by Proctor Tyn
dali than Of The latest admirable poem TINT, over
powered in the brilliant presence Of scientific discov-
cry, their conceptions less dazzling. thirst
for moro facts grows upon them; they throw aside
their Tyres and renew the fascinating study forgeful
that the inspiration Of Plato, Shakespeare, and other
poets OF old, often forcshadowed tho glory Of hcse
reyeatious and ncelectng to chant in turn the trans
cendcnt possibilities OF cares vet to come. Science
the modern C:rce beguilcs them from their voyage to
the Hespcridea and transforms them into her voice
This transition period may DO trying enough
to the yotaries Of tho Muse. But it is only q
transition period, it thoy will accept their place
as interpreters Of the new order. Facts are not
to be disguised. Men are no longer athirat for
the gayety and ro1ief with which the Elizabeth
an poetry bore them away from the contempla-
ton OF tho long and dark Middle Ages. We
still need poetry, rs wo still have Imagination,
fancy, and moods but it must bo poetry rec
ognizing that the Imagination Of to-day feeds on
facts utterly different from classic fables. Chir-
alric romance, OF oven the spirit Of Nature to
which the school OF Wordsworth, Burns, and
Cooper gave their thoughts. They SO thorough
1y expressed it's possibilities that there is hardly
an aspect of Nature, whether Of storm
antics Of the winds, tho simmer Of 'leaves, the
diyersities OF lake, Forest or heath, that is not
uainutely and beautifully caught and held forever
in their voreo. That which stirs tho thought to-
day is Of anothor kind. child looks with ter
ror upon the threatening cock that strides in the
barnyard; his brain turns hot with stories Of
hobgoblins The man sees farther and coarer
than the child; he has IN imagination, but it
is an imagination to be stirred only by appropri-
ate etinlulant. As with the man. so with tho
nation. English-speaking people Of the nine
teenth century cannot be expected to find their
intellectual food in tho the thought of
the fourteenth the fifteenth, the sixteenth, not
those writcrs Of to-day who Initiate these old
schools. Tho fuol that makes our fires must be
cut thie year. We cannot burn the ashes OF for
mer times. Beauty is but truth, and truth is
immortal. A refined and cultivated taste will
always cherish the beauty Of the past, but still
is it true that the present cannot draw its ruling
inspiration from antiquity. Its history, its civil
Ization it's life, its poetry, even it's naorals hare
different conditions than heretofore. Even the
clergy, who, By education and habits Of thought,
change Of the genius of the day. They arc con-
forming to it, and SO must our poets. But tore
tnrn to slr. stedman:
There arc passages in modern poems which nearly
indicate the approaching harmony Of poetry and
science ind tie essays Of Tyndau and Spencer are,
The question Of form left out, poems IN themselves
but to the present moment the imagination, para-
doxca AZ 1t mar eeeun, has most elevated and
sustained by the contemplation Of natural objects,
rather they to be than We know they For
TO the and absorbed spirit it Is the ideal only that
seems real as loyer adorcs tho image and si1nua
Of his mistress, reflected from his inner con-
sciousness, than the Very self aud substance OF
her being. Thus Keats, thu English apprentice
breathet tho freshness Of Thessalion forestwinds.
But this transition Periods still buffcting the
Ficto1ian poets, who, not yet having grasped tho
spirit Of their day, may be diacerned-
copying the refrans ard legendary fceng Of lll-
minated nissals and hlackleter lays another recast.
ing tho most enchanting and famous romances OF
Christendom In delicious language and measures
caught from Chaucer himself and others adopting the
quaint religious manner Of Herbert and Vaughan 4
host essaying and conscientious representations
the undying beauty OF Greuk NEUROLOGICAL lore. We
them dallying with sweet and sound, until
our taste for melody and color Is than surfeitel
Conscious Of this, few with spasmodic effort he
original break away IN disdain Of nll art, paling of
raucy roughness" for strength and coarsencss fo1
yigor and this return 70 chaos wins the favor
many who, from very sickness Of refinement, pass
to the other extreme, and welcome tic work