The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1903-12-27

Toil-Tiven rock. now pouring milk and
Where an was treeless waste and sum
baked alkaline.
we now see that whatever merits
there are IN Mr.. Whitney's poem fla
common with other epics, it has this
distinctive feature, an its own. that liz
is American and. more than that, IL is
an epic OF Western America There
fore. If the poem lives. as I believe 10
must, it VIII be identified in the annals
Of literature with Western American
culture; and that is something which
we here must not forget. Germany
never speaks Of her literature without
reference 10 Goethe, Italy forgete not
Dante. England remembers Milton. le,
the west cherish Whitney; because,
verse for verse. thought for thought.
motive for motive and theme for theme
they viii bear comparison on every
issue.
i can find nothing in the English YER
sions Of the Divine Comedy to sur
pass some Of the finer passages in
ELIAS" A moment came in Dante's
poem paradise, Canto FIID when he
questions his angelic guide:
Tell who ye are" cried. Forthwith it
In size and splendor, through augmented
And thus it answered: "A short date be-
The world possessed me Had the time
Much evil. that viii come. had never
Ny sadness. hides thee from me. which
Around. and shroud me as an animal
In its own silk unswathed."
Some such moment comes in Elias
when the young poet also questions his
celestial visitant. Thus Whitney:
Who towers aloft as mountain grit with
Amid ne strength of Ephraim's stalwart
To trumpet thus the closing act Of Time?
Speak. oracle, what sayest thou OF thy
springing from freedoms stem on free
who art thou. man Of might and mai
csty2
Would God might but ten you who I
Would God might but tell you what Z
know"
without any reference to place in the
poem I viii add for Illustration Of it's
literary qualities few passages from
ELIAS"
Truth taught me more. but babe me ST.
And III had teachers else-tOn. prayer and
with days and nights Of misery's martyr
dom,
Alone and lorn in griers Gethsemane:
TIL storm above, and earthquake under
meath.
Shook down thoughts prison house,
broke bolt and bar,
And agony set inspiration free.
lis thus the Great Musician tunes the
harp
Sweeping with sorrows hand the CULVER
That they may cry aloud. and haDly
A loftier and more enduring lay.
Where art thou, ancient soul Of solemn
Asleep? Then wake! Wherefore art
The world hath need Of thee. and waitcth
long.
striEe-strike again thy. harp, and thrill
the raptured throng.
Declare. o muse Of mlghtier wing,
OF loftier lore than mine,
Why God is God and man may be
Both human and divine;
Why SONS Of Cod. mid sons of men,
UnrecOgnized may dwell,
So masked in dense mortality
That none their truth can tell
A kings a king when acting like a king;
When covering like slave he is a
Nor blood. nor birth. nor all that pride
To prove a serf a sovereign lord, can
The purple tide from minsling with its
wave.
The soul must royal be, or there's an end
TO royalty
Flake upon flake, then slide succeeding
slide
The marvel and the wonder multiplied.
Gray grows to crimson, crimson melts to
And d9Wnns the day by starry night fore
told.
For who can stay the sunike march OF
Who dim with bloody hand her beam di-
First shall he halt the progress Of the
stars
The bright procession Of the infinite.
Blot out the day-5eam, duh the scythe OF
time
Shear mornings wings, roll back eternal
night.
And shake the moveless throne Of des-
tiny.
But what are life death, earth and time
TO thee
Eternal Truth? Thou Eoest on for aye.
Lives, deaths; earths, times. their plurals
mulutOld-
These but the bubbles on thy boundIess
wave,
The sands, Of thy great glass. the flicker
ing CLEANS
OF life that knows nor origin nor end.