The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1874-03-26
The Practical Uses of Poetry.

and will be presented to the Lee Memo
rial Chapel, at Lexington.
The Practical Uses of Poetry.
Everybody reioices when lazy fol-
low is compelled to work. 1t gives su-
preme satisfaction to see an habitual
shirk eilectually cornered. The most
economical and conscientious will now
and then rejoice at the destruction or
injury of the most beautiful fabrics, il
they have seemed to give any factitious
Importance to the body they covered.
The neat kids, the shiny boots, the fine
broadcloth, never give their wearer so
keen pleasure as they afford to his
homcspun and hard-worked neighbor
when any contingency compelling him
to put forth his strength in some meni-
al occupation, splits the kids, muddies
the boot, and rumples tho broadcloth.
suppose it is on this principle that
all those good, sensible, practical
people who consider poetry the natural
loafer of literature, seize every oppor-
tunity to put it to some homely use,
and seem to delight in seeing it har-
messed down to plain, healthy moral,
or made to express geographical or
meteorological fact. The despiser of
Tennyson, and ignorer of Whittier, in-
yariably resorts to
''Thirty days hath September,
April, June aud Noycmt
when he wishes to verify his dates, He
looks forth from his window, and dis
Germs the signs of the sky with NUT
tered
Evening red and morning gray
Takes the traveller on his way
He even regulates his household econ
omy with such questionable synopsis as
"A stitch in time
Saves nine
His children are taught their first les
sons of thrift in the couplets--
See in and let it lay,
And you'll have bad luck all day
Seea pin and pick it up,
As often as there is a funcraliu his fam.
ilv, he searches the hymn-boOk for II
rhvme to be placed on the tombstone
and. if the event calls ont few orjgl-
nal stapzas from some local muse, the
copv is preserved forever in the family
scrap-book.
It's but fewyears since one of these
geniuses, who periodically burst upon
the public schools with scheme OF
learning, so sugared and honeycd that
the children cry for it, turned " Peter
parley's geography " into verse, and set
thousands Of classes to singing, in con-
cert, complete list of bays, rivers, capes
and capitals He was followed by one
who developed the same idea in the
realm of philosophy, and whose crown
ing triumph was the couplet by which
he taught the order of the colors OF the
rainbow
''On mcmory's tablet thcsc shall live ....
While we can spoil the word R-U-I-G-li.l'N'
But more troublesome to remember
than dates, facts, and geographical sta
tistics, vet more mortifyipg to forget,
are the requirements Of etiquette. The
completest victory OF those who lash
solid facts to buoyaut poetry, that the
whole may float gracefully in the mem
orv, has been achieved byn genius who
reduces the whole science to plain rules
and puts every rule in rhyme. Landor's
couplct--
"That il foolish who supposcs
Thoso dogs arc i'll that have hot noses -
was one of the accidental touches which
SO often preccdc a great discovery. The
riper genius grasps the principle, and
gives It complete application. Thus
we read
"'Tis pity il vCu have a cold,
But worse il the sal fact be told
By every kind OF uncOuth sound.
Annoying every one around
Soet the secret be confined
To your own handkerchief and mind,
Here is an essential principle Of po-
! litencss SO welded to sweet verse that
even child cannot misunderstood or
forget it
''In company your teeth to pick,
Would make refined behOldcIs SICK.
The worldwide discussion on the
proper use of the knife and fork IS MI
summed up and settled by this sugges
tive passage:
" If you should in moment rash,
Reverse their NE, perhaps you'd Sael
A mouth already far too wide,
And shock all who might sec beside.
Bread, nuts, and fruit, dear sir, or madam,
Eat in the mode of Eyo and Adam
Verify, poetry is good for something
after all but, like willful child, on
must know how to manage it.