The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1892-07-13
The "orphicn Elem.nt i'm Poetry.

The "Orphic" Element i'm Poetry.
Among the happiest tributes ever paid
by one son of song to another was that
bestowed on Wordsworth by Matthew
Arnold, in the memorable lines where he
says of him
He was priest to us all
OF the wonder and bloom of the world,
Which we saw with his eyes and were glad.
And truly this is not only happy as an
ascription of homage to the individual
poet, but, as description, it is the most
felicitous we know, of what constitutes,
in the true sense, the poet by prominence.
1t is a crystallizing in words of the ST..
preme quality distinguishing the 4Dii
Majores" of the lyre-that quality, with
out which other endowments, such as
wealth of fresh imagery, music of ex.
preston, and power to seize and portray
characters and feelings, although most
precious as auxiliaries, will yet fail, apart
from diviner gift, to reach the true
aureole of the Muse.
In the case Of the great Pan of the
Lakes, it was this power, frequently yet
only titfully manifested even by him, Of
what we are inclined to call "Orphic
song" that has made the name of Words.
worth the greatest in English literature
since Milton, and one of the Three
Mighties in the field of English as dis.
tinguished from Scottish poetry. In con.
versation on one occasion with H. Crabt
Robinson, Wordsworth came nearest to
revelation of the secret Of this mystic
power-the occasion, namely, when he
let fall the observation as to how common
things can be glorifed, in the words.
@The imagination must irradiate an
object with that infinity without which
there is no poetry" This, when in
terpreted, must mean that only when an
object is linked on to, and lit up in tn"
light of, the infinite and the eternal, is
there any radiance on the horizon, or any
vista of hope or joy encircling it beyond
this visible diurnal sphere.
1t is this "Orphic" element, character.
izing the great Hierophant of Nature in
his higher moods, that has been trans
fused, as is now well known, from him
and his twin brother Coleridge, through
Keats and Shelley and Tennyson, into the
main stream of our English verse during
the present century; and wherever this
element can not be found, there we may
feel sure there is no true title to the SUI.
preme dignity of poetry, and we look in
vain for the inspiration and the poets
dream
The light that never was on sea or land.
Through the might of this mystic
power Wordsworth was enabled to ira
date the common sights and sounds of
nature SO largely with the light of eternal
beauty, and to reveal to us, as none ever
did before him with such potency, the
glory of the visible world as the symbol
of divine and invisible omnipresence.
Hence to him the radiance of mystery
surrounding the meanest flower that
blows, and the inscrutable depths of
feeling in the human heart, which is
lowered to be the interpreter of tina,
mystery. All this vision, as Arnold ex.
presses it. of the "wonder and bloom Of
the world" he taught us to see with his
eyes as fresh revelation, for the world
was through this new Orpheus touched
with new emotion, the most fruitful
and potential in the domain of poesy
known to this latter age and time.
Perhaps the really most notable tro,
ply of this Orphic spell as exerted by
Wordsworth is the titanic muse of Lord
Byron. That proud and strong spirit
long resisted, but in the end succumbed,
while snorting scorn and indignation, to
drink deep finally of the love of nature
as distilled from Wordsworth, and inn
bibed through the medium of Shelley, so
that in the later cantos of "Childe Har-
old" he too has learned the mystic mood
and, as he elsewhere expresses it, can find
it joy,
To bend upon the mountains high
The quiet of loving eye.
Thus Byron, the Titanic, has grown
Orphic, and become priest of the won.
der and bloom of the world. u Black.
woods Magazine.