The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1878-06-26
p @ E T r Y
BEAUTIES OF THE ELEGIAC STYLE
By GEO. P HERNDoS, ESQ. EDITOR OF THE
TUPELo JOURNAL.

LADIES and Gentlemen Of PteksbUrg, and Hem
6ers Of the Press Association:
fear you will prepare yourselves f,
listen TO dull essay, when | tell you
have chosen for my subject, Poetry, anC
the Beauties of the Elegiac Style, but
1t is really not an uninteresting subject
and If fail TO entertain you, | shall at
tribute my failure to the manner il
which l have treated the subject, and
not lay the fault at the door of the sub
Ject itself, for since the days when the
youthful shepherd of Bethlehem, ere
long transformed from his mental sphere,
into mighty King, more loved of God,
than all the sons of men--since the shep-
herd, David penned his BURNING words
into those sacred songs, that must live
forever, has poetry held its sway above
all other styles of written thought.
/ There is soft cadence in the measur
ed flow of genuine verse, that leaves an
impress upon US, more lasting than the
wisest teachings that have ever flushed
from the brain of man, when expressed
in homely prose. They may portray the
same truths >-express the same ideas
and yet there is the difference of the rain
drops, which fall to earth in form Of pelt-
ing hail, or fit slowly, and softly down
in ermined flakes of snow.
Mans wisdom suddenly transferred to
us through the medium of prose, may
startle us like the quick clap OF thunder,
which bursts upon us unawares, but its
genter sister, poesy, falls upon our ears
as do the coors, on the eye, of the soft
| tinted rainbow, leaving in our mind a
scene of pictured beauty long after the
loud voiced thunder has passed away
and been forgotten.
Poetry is the divinest of Gods gifts
to man. To be able to hold spell bound,
and sway an audience, with an eloquent
oratory is grand-it is even glorious
| but the fascination is in the voice, the
eye, and the feature of the speaker, and
when you cease to hear and look upon
him, the spell is broken, the substance
has fled, leaving only a pleasing shadow.
There Is greater nearness existing
between the never changing portrait on
your wall to the being of life and health,
whose form and face it mirrors there,
than there is in the self same man and
orator The man, who is gifted with
eloquence, is not always so. He is
warmed into the orator by the elements
around HIM, even as the Iurid lightning
is made to flash from out black clouds,
and light up the heavens with its daz
cling radiance. We are entrauced with
its beauty and grandeur, but a moment
| later, as we gaze AT the motionless mass
from whence it sprung, we cannot per
fectly recall the scene, that so lately
passed before US. Hence we see. that
eloquence, is only an evanescent gift Of
nature. 1t is produced only under GER
tain circumstances, just as the drear ice
| bergs of winter, are thawed by the gent
al sun into flowing, snow capped pillows
in roseate summer. But the fabric
which the poet builds, is dependent on
nothing for its continued existence, and
it will live long after the orator who
stirred the souls of men to madness, by
| his eloquence has sought oblivion. The
one leaves upon US the indistinct out
| lines of ii pleasant dream, the other is
an ever living picture before us.
OF all the writings of ancient times
which have been handed down to us
through the admiring industry of more
than two thousand sleeping generations,
none stand out so prominently, none are
so familiar to the lettered, and the I'M
lettered reader, as the creations that
were framed in verse. These are repro
duced at intervals in every enlightened
cline, to delight the reason and magma
ton of man. 1t is only year or more
ago, since the eldest and greatest of liv-
ing American poets completed a trans
lation of the daring deeds of Greeks and
Trojans in behalf of that Fair Stolen
| Treasure, like unto that which the Lord
placed in Eden to bless the sight of
Adam.
Poetry is to the mind, what music is to
the ear. 1t delights, it soothes, it oft in
cities to noble action. But that type of
poetry which far outshines all other styles
of verse, is the elegiac; especially those
touching illusions which are written of,
and dedicated to the dead. Those
poetic outburts which tell of a tender
love and reverence for sainted memo
ry. And it seems strange to US that it
is so. 1t is mans nature to soon forget
the loss of loved ones in the hurry and
worry of busy world, and it is a well
ordered rule of Providence which thus
govern him, for if he must always mourn
the loss of the absent, existence would
become an intolerable burden, and the
earth an abode of Stygian night, where
no ray of the blest sunshine of hope
could enter in, for who hath not lost a
friend
1t is human to love sunshine better
than shadow, the bright robes of nature,
rather than her more somhre hues. Smiles
attract us more than tears. We feel a
sympathy for the man or woman whose
| (ooa ,,rh Iotb fall &c hut
we would rather turn our eyes on those,
whose countenances bear no trace of
aught but peace and joy. 1t would seem
that the poet would be more inspired
when telling of the virtues Of being,
living, and loved, than in dwelling upon
the projections Of missing face-of a
vanished hand. But as we have stated,
this is not the case. The truest verse
that was ever penned, has been written
of the noble dead.
THE dead, the only beautiful, the only
blest;
The dead whom we call so,
They that breathe purer air,
That feel, that know things wrapped from
us.n
However. it is not our purpose entire
ly, to descant upon the abstract beautie;
of poetry, but we will point out, what
are in our humble opinion, few bright
painted pictures, gathered here and there
alike from the fortune favored artist who
has made a name that will last as Ions
as your smooth flowing river, or you
eternal hills, and the God-gifted genius
who like the missing plead, shone out
, suddenly, as bright as any star in heav
en-, and then was lost to view forever
And there are many of these. Their
have lived and died, and there live to
| day, men and women who have within
them poetic inspiration as strong as tina