The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-05-01
THE POETIC FEELING.

| To the Editor Of the Eagle
The world has many poets. It is not
only those who have thrilled us with
their mighty genius, finding expression
in those sublime poems that ring down
the ages" who have the poetic feeling,
the deep sympathy with nature, the love
of all her beauties from the simplest
flower to the grandeur of her mountain
peaks, that goes so far toward making
up the poet.
fancy if we could open the close shut
petals of many quiet heart and mind,
and look within, there would be a glory
of fancy and feeling revealed beside which
all that has been said or sung would fade
into insigniicance. For, at its best, what
is expressed in the sculptor's marble, in
the artists picture, in the poets song, but
the faintest shadow of the thought, feel
ing and inspiration, that guided the CHS
ell. the brush and the pen? After the best
he has written the poet feels that he has
given TO the world only the husk-the
full, rich kernal lies ever in his own
/ heart.
But there Is something sublime in even
partial expression. Who does not love
the poet who puts in words ones feelings,
who gives form TO those vague fancies,
those beautiful, nebulOus dreams of the
mind: The poet is one of a mighty
brotherhood, most of whom are born
dumb, and the poet of today, is vOicing
the thought of thousands who have gone
in silence to unknown graves.
The poet who writes is. after all, only
half the poet. There must be, too, the
poet who reads, for men may write dip
ping their pen in their hearts blood, and
if there were no appreciative mind to
listen, there would be no poem. And to
us the poem is only as much poem as
we have the feeling, the gift, to appreci-
ate. | read and know what is akin to
me. You read and know what is akin to
you. The rest, for us Is unSaid.
And there is always the best of our
minds uninterrupted. For always our
deepest feelings. whether of sorrow or of
beauty, are as far beyond the reach of
all the world in the very essence that
makes them ours as if none other existed.
Does not the poets God. nature. speak
for him? Does not the unQuiet soul find
best expression in the tumult of the
storm, when the sharp flash, the lurid
glare of the lightning, the rattle of the
thunder and the war and rush of winds
seem but his own waring thoughts,
freed, loosed from their prison and TAX
ing this drear form? And surely the
blue of that summer sky. the whispers
of the soft wind and the hum of insects
IN the deep repose of summer evenings,
is only natures Interpretation of his
peaceful thoughts in happier hours.
As he lives closer to nature so is he
more and near the poet, for then he hears
even the faintest whisper of his beloved
mistress, in the sultry heat of summer
morn. in the deep silence of the starry
nights when the gray mists of morning
shroud her face and she is seemingly
dumb in her gloom. He is not sad, he
is never alone, who loves this mighty
mistress with the poets love, for when
all other comforts fail he may turn to
her and find somewhat of peace.
And still, soaring above the flower
gemed stretch of prairie, the snow-clad
summit of the towering mountains, be-
You'd the soft azure of the evening sky,
even beyond the glittering hosts of stars,
the mind of man, the soul of the poet,
reaches in its yearning the Infinite and
Creator of all, before whose
majesty all that is and has been pales
and fades, and thus by the golden stair
of natures glories he finds his way t
natures God. NJ. NJ. NJ.