The San Francisco call., 1895-11-17

1.-The Cataract of Lodore," by Southey, is an
ingenious example OF this use OF words:
And dashing and flashing and splashing and
Clashing with mighty uproar;
And this way the water comes down at Lodore
The very words have voice; they gurgle
and gush and roar like the waters.
ALTERATION is another feature which pertains
to the use OF words, and which, II discreetly
applied tends to euphony. Most poets avail
themselves of these tone effects; II is pre-
vailing method with Swlnburne-and even
Poe, who condemns, adopts 1t unconsclously.
Iteration is frequently employed with mar
velous force, as in the lines heretofore quoted:
Cannon to right OF them,
Cannon to left OF them.
And again, in that sad, strange monody:
Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, o sea!
Poetry, despite the restrictions OF form, can
indulge in epithet and metaphor which would
seem inconsistent in prose, as when Englend's s
dead laureate bursts forth in that splendid
panegyric to the Roman bard:
Landscape lover, lord of language
More than he that sang the works and days,
All the chosen coin of fancy
Flashing out from many golden phrase.
Thou that singest wheat and woodland,
Tth and vineyard, hive and horse and herd
All the charm OF all the muses.
Often Towering in q lonely word.
Now thy Forum roars no longer,
Fallen every purple C@sar's dome,
Though thine ocean roll of rhythm
Sound forever OF Imperial Rome.
salute thee, Mantovano,
1 that loved thee since my day began,
Wieder of the Stateliest measure
Ever nodded by the lips OF man.
Why are we enabled to distinguish the in
audible voice of this and that poet? 1t is not
necessary to read autograph to recognize
the work of Milton and of Pope, OF Swinburne
and of Poe, of Browning and of LongfelloW.
Certainly it is not the thought expressed, but
the mode OF expressing it. 1t is this distinctive
some thing which makes parody possible and
permits the parodist to catch the verve and
vogue OF the poet and to echo his very tone.
While the grandeur of Milton, the simplicity
of Wordsworth, the audacity of Byron, the
sweetness of Shelley, the ambiguity of Brown
ing have each had their school of neophytes,
there are other and later poets who, with keen
ness of artistic sense, have developed new
methods. These clever versemakers know full
we'll that all excess OF sweetness pals upon
the taste They hint at a sentiment rather
than express it; they understand the value of
restraint and charm and surprise us with q
fruitful word which haunts the memory.
Like music, rhyme and rhythm seem some
$imes to be an instinct. There have been men
divine gift was denied, while unlettered peas
ants have given to their simple speech the
cadence and rhythm of sonnets. Of such
'Poeta nascitur, non fit" may have been
written. There are examples of equal felicity
in both forms-notably Scott and Macaulay-
but such are the rare exceptions.
Great thoughts, splendidly clothed, will
sometimes come like flash and marshal
themselves in perfect array, but more fire.
quently the genius which produces the immor-
tai verse is the genius of labor. ~ sought
twenty-four hours for a single word" said
Longfellow. 'I smoked dozen pipes over
that phrase" said Tennyson. These are the un-
written secrets of the craft Each sentence,
each word, has its history.
The poet is the interpreter of nature as well
as the servitor of art. He hears the song of the
bird, the ripple, OF the rill, the voice OF the
wind, the thunder of the ocean, and he puts
them into words. He sees the purple peak, the
sapphire sea- and sonnet is born. He must
of necessity be epigrammatic; he makes q
picture with a stroke OF the pen; a single word
is sometimes hashlight which reveals a
world.
1 quote two lines from stedman's poem,
"Kearney at Seven Pines:
He rode down the length Of the ,cittering column
And his heart at our warcry leaped up with q
bound.
The word "withering" is the keynote and
tells terrible tale. You can see the heroic
figure, you thrill with the magnetism of his
bravery, you can hear the bursting bomb and
the kissing ball; you mark the dead and
dying; you recognize the courage begotten Of
courage, which is manifested in the warcry o.
the rank and file. The picture is complete and
its suggestions would fill volume. This !:
the consummation Of art and the inspiration
of genius.
Awed by criticism the poet sometimes hide.
behind sneer and becomes cynic. He vii
exercise the testers license. Locker says:
oh, for the poet-voice that swells
To lofty truths or noble curses
only wear the cap and bells,
And yet some tears are in my verses.
Pathos provokes criticism and drollery dis
arms it. The Edinburgh Review slaughtered
Keats and lauded Hook; but Byron was "no
to be terrified by abuse or bullied by review
ers." al well Iecollect," he said in 1921, 18th,
effect which the critique OF the Edinburgh
reviewers on my first poem had upon me; i
was rage ana resistance and redress, but no
dependency or despair" In this mood hi
hurled the English Bards and Scotch Re
viewers In the teeth of his traducers.
For ages the satirists have resorted to rhyme
to lampoon the follies and foibles of mankind
but have long had grave suspicion tina
| satire serves more frequently as an armor thar
as a weapon
Humor and wit often happily enliven tn,
page of the poet, but it is the turn OF th'
phrase that feathers the shaft.
Poets are largely Influenced by their environ
ment. The artificial life and manners of tn,
Augustan age could produce Horace ant
Ovid, but it could not produce Homer
Homer, sole wonder OF q thousand years" II
his stately hexameters, dead centuries will
their stress and strife, their pomp and pain
file past
In semi-barbaric days the:poets were priests
and prophets; but the myths which fas
cinated superstition will not satisfy doubt
The poets of to-day do not, like Milton, chron
icle the pageantry of a doubtful heaven, or
possible hell. They analyze tradition ant
fable as scientists read the record of the
rocks-to arrive at the truth. The gods o.
Olympus are invoked, not as deities, but be
cause they typify some beauty or grace or per
sonify some passion OF pang. The nineteenth