The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-10-20
WHAT Do THEY ME4Ne

1ho poeI anu MS utteranceS have been
the subject of more or less curiosity
since the time when he was a shepherd
gazing at the stars while his focks
slumbered beneath the vaulted heavens.
Some have understood him. many have
tried to understand him. Sometimes he
has understood himself, but usually he
has been as much in the dark as any
body.
AS it takes mathematician to meas
ure and weigh the planets, so it takes a
poet to understand a poet. Much of the
finest poetry is not to be understood-it
can be felt only. Like music, it ap-
peals to the things unseen and unreal
soned. When poetry is understandable
by the ordinary mind, it ceases to be
poetry-it is but commonplace prose.
True, it may have all the rhythm and
cadence of the. poets art, but it remains
prose just the same. ~
Browning clubs used to meet weekly
and weakly attempt to understand what
Browning never understood himself, and
did not want to- understand.
An unpoetical soul once wrote to
Cardinal Newman asking for the. mean
ing of a certain couplet in LEAD, Kindly
Light" To this impious fnquisitor-this
intruder into the holy Of holes, the car
dinal responded as follows:
My Dear DR.. Greenhill: You fatter me
by your question, but I think it was
Aeble who, when asked in his own case.
answered that poets were not bound to
be critics, or to give a sense to what
they had written; and though I am not,
IKE him, poet at leaStImay plead that I
am not bound to remember my own mean
ing, whatever it was, at the end of fifty
years. Anyhow, there must be a statute
OF limitations for writer's of verse, or it
would be quite tyranny if, in an art
winch Is the expression, not of truth, but
or IMAGINATION and sentiment, one were
obliged to be ready for examination on
the transient state of mind which came
upon one when honlesick Or seasick, or
IN any other way sensitive or excited
A fitting rebuke to one of those fools
who rush in where angels fear to tread
Who would stop to analyze to know the
hidden springs of an overpowering love?
Who could be SO unpoetic as to risk the
loss of the beautiful elusiveness of those
matchless quatrains of Omar that ring
with the soul-cry for the Great Secret, by
asking what does it all means?
.'You want to know the secret-so did 7.
Low in the dust 1 sought it, and on high;
Sought in awful flights from star to
star,
The sultan's Waterman of the starry sky.
Up, up where PerWiin's hoofsl stamp
My soul went knocking at each starry
door,
Till on the Silly top of heavens stair.
Clear-eyed l looked-and laughed-and
climbed nc more
To ask what the poet meant by this
would be to ask the heart of his mys-
tery-the unknowable thoughts of his in
ner-being that never can be born in
words.
Cannot we be satisfied with the pro.
phetic sweep of the Battle Hymn of the
Republic, ~ Mithc,t asking what Julia
Ward Howe meant by:
mine eyes have seen the glory of the
coming of the Lord;
He is tramping out the vintage where the
grapes of wrath are stored
He has loosed the fateful lightning of his
terrible swift sword
My God is marching on"
When professors" of literature like
Trfggs attempt to reduce al poetry to
common denominator-to run it in the
mould Of utility, they but advertise their
own incapacity. They look upon poetry
as do the color-blind upon a gorgeous
sunset, and eXclaim what good is it?''
It is no good to them, for they do not
feel what the writer felt at the time
the poem came hot from the volcanic
soul.
Many a poor poet has had meanings
read into his lines of which he never
dreamed and which he never felt. Long
fellow was once asked by teacher (?)
if in the line from the Village Black
smith," reading: 'He looked the whole
world in the face, for he owed not any
man." the thought was not, that he
owed everything to God. To this
princess of idiots the poet replied, that
his intention was to convey the idea that
the blacksmith was out of debt.
When a person of average reputation
for truth and veracity solemnly alleges
that he, she or it, does not enjoy poetry,
accept the statement without argument.
It no doubt is true. 1.-THE man who hath
not music in his soul and is not moved
by concord of sweet sound, is fit for
treason, strategem and spoils." So. too,
is the man who hath no poetry in his
soul. He no doubt has his place some
where in the economy of nature. as
nothing has been created in vain. But
he is out of tune with Gods harmony.
"DRY SMOKING"