The Washington herald., 1912-12-29

Nightingale. Here Is pictured sucn ecstasy
OF mind and heart as we md also in Loweiis
''Uoder the willows" getting out OF self.
which every human being seeks TO gain.
even when he uses no higher means than that
of a moving picture show.
And here it may not be out Of place to men
ton that It was by no legerdemain or care
less improvisation that such pictures were
produced. Keats often spent eight hours
day, day after day, training his heart to high
endeavor through the reading Of Shakespeare
and other great poetry,
II mans heart is not prone to find graft
fcation in one sort of poetry, some other
sort may yet give him the keenest enjoyment
and discipline in high sentiment. tits a rash
thing for man to reject all verse because
some that he has heard or read has given
him no pleasure, and perhaps has not evel
been comprehended The stimulation OF
patriotic verse has been like martial music TO
men from the earliest verse makers. The
words OF the ancient poet have come down
10 US through thousands Of years, saying
that if he could but make the songs Of The
ration it mattered not who made thasaws.
Almost the whole OF John Greenleaf Whit
tiers fame came TO him because Of his patri-
otto poems and James Russell LowelI's
DlEeiOW FdpGTS. lnOuBn COuSncu IN nv
morous dictlon, are accredited with having
had great political influence.
4 =
Longfellow Stifs Hearts.
Longfellow, though his rank as a poet
has been much disputed, did write poems
that stirred mems hearts the, whole world
over-they have been translated into many
Ianguages-and what is perhaps more es-
fha4r vETIII s
as well Let US then be up and doing,
with a heart for any fate" is only a gentle
form of the exhortations most prevalent to-
day Miles stsndish, taking Cesar as his
model man of action, could give US through
Longfellow's pen the line that embodies
the sentiment of many an ambitious man,
Il would rather be first in q little Iberian
village than second in Rome"
A reading Of Longfelow Ia say what
you will about L" hat cat, and bal" poetry.
a good beginning for the one who would
love verse. Even "The Village Black
smith " and the much parodied Excel
sior," and the worse parodied Hiawatha,
may have an old fashioned charm for even
the most sophisticated reader Of verse.
Although Walter Scott gave up writing
poetry because he thought his verse not
equal to another's, yet what Lowell has
called his e galloping horse meter has de-
lighted thousands, and It has been quite an
invaluable step in the training Of more than
one boy and girl-that of reading Scott's
Lady of the Lake. or LochinvarH In
the former are passages such as d" even the
light harebell raised its head. elastic from
her airy tread" which have been Endorsed
by our greatest poets as quite perfect. Per-
feet lines of poetry, like perfect poems, have
been much sought after by men. neglecting
the fact that a decision rests upon taste,
and. as in food, so IN verse, what is one man $
meat may be another mans poison. Tenny-
son found that Wordsworth's line in Tin
tern Abbey" whose dwelling is the light
Of setting suns" was one Of the perfect lines.
II we turn to such a poet as Robert Brown
Poets Poet" yet Browning wrote THE
Pied Piper" and several other humorous or
rollicking poems Of the same sort. The fact
is that you may go to Browning for many
different things, and you need take only what
you want, but you must have the patience
or sense to find them. Some OF his poems
are Of the easiest and some are of the most
difficult to understand for they contain
either a simple picture or many and many
a kind of thought The religious read
Saul and THE Death in the Desert. /"
particularly, although the former contains
a quite pagan description of the delights
of mere living"