The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-08-22

and are Sufficiently suggestive of the tai
low dip orr the incanfescent light. The
quatrain tlHt finisheF out a page with an
Of verse that is der to the heart of the
magazine Inagnate Now, it often occurs
that the pdth the soul OF long poem
seems to csondenss Itself into four lines
but the four Inns could not have been
written without# the other stanzas, by
which they areEortified, and would fail of
effect without usm, while a complete poem
in four liness livery rare, indeed, and most
Of these ausgaains are no more than han
weightier matters have failed to entirely
occupy
The dialect form is the one most often
preferred for the purpose of pleasing the
great public. and our editors and critics
seem TO imagine that because the public
delights in the dialectics of Burns and
Dickens, Lowell and Riley, and Uncle
Remus," it thirsts after dialect "as the
hart panteth after the water brooks.
But, in truth the public cares little for
dialect in poetry unless it brings before
the minds eye and in the hearing of the
soul scenes, conditions, characters and
full Of the pathos of mingled joy and sor-
row. Misspelled words, awkwardly ar
ranged, and long, rambling stories that be-
representative of any dialect or patois,
living or dead They please nobody, and
would have no vogue" except for the in
dorsement given them by those whose IA
Vor is construed into a sort of literary di-
pioma. The public taste thus catered to
Is a purely imaginative quantity.
That portion of the public that is to any
appreciate degree literary, that is to say,
has other interests than the market re-
ports, the sporting news, the political con-
tentiOns the rumOrs of war and the daily
scandals, loves poetry for it's own sake;
but it is a mistake to suppose that it is
welded to certain peculiar forms of verse
or that 1t thirsts after metrical sphinxes or
riddles in rhyme. The great public is very
busy about its own or other peoples af-
fairs, but it loves q song or q rhyme or,
upon rare occasions, even a block of sonOr-
Gus blank verse that aWakenS some noble
thought, some tender, sweet memory or
lofty aspiration, or that provokes the
laughter OF remembered happiness, or tears
THAT are sad and sweet
AS on dark summer dawns
Inc earliest pipe Of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The easement slowly gloWs a glimmering
square"
In very truth the public taste for poetry
Is almost as multifOrm and varied as the
units Of which that public is composed.
ana even while our critics are WhiStling
such such old favorites as Pope and his anti
browning and Walt Whitman and giving
Tennyson and Longfellow the cold Shout
people who continue to revere the elder
bards, and still find philosophy and COM
fort in The Essay on Man" and wonder
full inspirations in "Childe Harrold's Pill
grfmage," while the effort to overwhelm
Tennyson and Longfellow by preaching
Browning and Whitman as the great
prophets OF the Victorian age is accom-
plishing far less than its votaries imagine
Because both Browning and Whitman
have, in much of their work, wrought well
and nobly, IT does not follow that they de-
serve either to be deifed or lifted on to
the Same shelf with Homer and Shak-
speare, or that the world is going to for
get any one of two score of the Victorian
poets in order to pay exclusive homage to
them. Any vogue in poetry which includes
within its horizon but one, or, at most a.
few poets, will never become popular, for
when people cease to cherish various ideals
and are all kneaded into one level mass
OF thought and appreciation there will be
no more poetry, nor imagination, nor rO-
nance, and art viii be only a memory
sci in lump of jujube paste or the ''com-
position of which printers rolls are made
b. S. PARKER.