Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1915-04-16
A CAUTIOUS CRITIC
He DalIics With Some Noted
Verse Makers and Kicks.
TOO MUCH POETIC LICENSE.
The Big Guns of Literature, In His
Opinion, Take Liberties the Little
Ones Would Not Dare Take and
Cites Examples to Prove His Case.

1--WE been dipping into poetry re
marked the casual caller. moi as a
writer, you understand, but as a read
er. At that l think l could do as well
as some Of them if ] could also write
my own license.
"The mere versi6er must stick to all
the rules of the game or be treated as
a joke, but the fellow who can get
across with the idea that he's a real
poet can make his own rules and take
liberties with riming and common
sense that would make a ~gargoyle
ashamed of himself, which no II
could do under n regular journeyman
poets license.
take Lochinvar,' for instance:
80 light to the Group the fair lady he
80 light to the saddle before her he
sprungl
How could he? | ask you that.
With the lady once mounted how could
he spring to the saddle without kick
Ing her off In the act-unless he mount
ed backward? And who but a poet
himself would license a poet to make
his hero do such a fool thing as that?
Those Netherby people would have
died laughing ut the spectacle. And
that's only the start, for we also have:
And save his good broadsword he weap-
ons had none;
He rode all unarmed and he rode all
alone.
SILLY. isn't it. to crack a man up as
riding unarmed when he carried a
broadsword that ranked with the
weapons of those days about where a
machine gun does new? We wouldn't
boast OF the nerve Of a man these days
who went to call on his ladylove with
a gafling. would we?
"These poetry heroes do such very
foolish things! There's also 'Horatius.
you know:
$50 he spake. and. speaking. sheathed
His good sword by his side
And. with his harness on his back.
Plunged headlong In the tide.
"Can you imagine IT? A man with n
couple of tons of iron attached to his
person and very likely a spiked helmet
diving head first into II river! Why,
he'd have spiked himself to the bottom
so hard that he'd be there yet. It's
supremely ridiculous. and no one but a
major poet would have dared even hint
Mt such d things What Horatius really
did, If he had the sense Of a brass pup,
was to jump in feet first so that he
could begin churning himself to the
surface the minute he struck the water.
But it's when he monkeys with
ships and railroad trains that the poet
becomes most absurd:
1--WE are lostl' the captain shouted
As he staggered down the stairs.
"Remember that old favorite, illus
trating the power of faith? Read it to
a seafaring man some day and hear
him snort. Why. a captain who'd leave
his post in n storm and go skipping
down to the cabin to throw a scare
into his passengers couldn't hold a job
as a mule driver for a canal boat.
Think of I'll A great storm, when he's
needed TO handle the ship, and the
poet sends him believing into the cab
in to start a panic-with no reason for
II either, for we learn later that they
anchored safe In harbor when the sun
was shining clear!' It's on a par with
the engineers story:
9TH train was heavily laden, SO l let my
engine rest,
Climbing the grading slowly till We reach
ed the uplands crest.
II put that up to a railroad man once
and he told me with much emphasis
that any engineer who let his engine
rest on an upgrade with a heavily load
ed train would be chased off the right
of way with bricks-if he got his train
through, which he probably wouldn't.
The chances are the train would slip
back and pile up In a ditch somewhere
while the engine was resting.
"But for supreme idiocy commend
me TO 'Casabianca.' Why, say, If that
hoy had been left in a house and the
house caught fire and the boy had re-
fused to let the firemen rescue him be-
cause papa had told him not to go
away you'd be sorry for him, of course;
but you'd never think of cracking him
up as anything but an example of un-
precedented imbecilityl You'd reason,
Well, that kid didn't have ems
enough to grow up anyway and let it
go at that. Yet the poet goes to work
anu IodStS HlHl 10 uedtu vi IL DuihtiS
ship just because papa isn't there and
expects you to applaud the inhuman
act 1t makes me tired
"And the riming that some of these
big guns do is simply atrocious. A lit
tie fellow couldn't get across with 1t in
a thousand years. Here take Manda-
lay for example:
ION the road to Mandalay,
Where the old fotilla lay,
With our sick beneath the awnings when
we went to Mandalay.
What kind Of riming is that-lay,
hay, lay? It's repetition, not riming
at all. You couldn't get a license to do
that kind Of thing. and neither could 1;
10 it's plain enough that Kipling must
haro Alled oa,t his own licansa and The