Bonners Ferry herald. [volume] (Bonners Ferry, Idaho) 1904-current, 1915-06-18
A CAUTIOUS CRITIC
He DaIlieS 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.

Opinion, axe LiDerties 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, mot as
writer, you understand, but as read
er. At that l think l could do as well
as some Of them if l could also write
my own license
1.-The mere versiier 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 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 one
could do under a regular journeyman
poets license.
"Take 'Lochinvar,' for instances:
$50 light to the Group the fair lady he
swung;
So 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 at 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 man up as
riding unarmed when he carried a
broadsword that ranked with the
weapons OF those days about where
machine gun does now? We wouldn't
boast of the nerve of a man these days
who went to call on his ladylove with
gatllng. would we?
These poetry heroes do such very
foolish thingsl 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? man with a
couple of tons of iron attached to his
person and very likely a spiked helmet
diving head first into a river! Why,
he'd have spiked himself to the bottom
so hard that he'd be there yet. It's
supremacy ridiculous. and no one but a
major poet would have dared even hint
at such a thing. What Horatius really
did, If he had the sense of brass pup,
was to jump in feet first so that he
could begin churning himself to the
surface the minute he struck the water
h.. 4 xtrffI
ships and railroad trains that the poet
becomes most absurd:
1--WE are lostr the captain shouted
As he staggered down the stairs
"Remember that old favorite. illus
trating the power of faith? Read it tc
a seafaring man some day and heal
him snort. Why, captain who'd leave
his post in a storm and go skipping
down to the cabin to throw a scare
into his passengers couldn't hold q jot
as a mule driver for a canal boat
Think of it, great storm. when he's
needed to handle the ship, and the
poet sends him believing into the cab
in to start panic-with no reason fol
It either, for we learn later that they
anchored safe in harbor when the SUI
was shining clearr It's on a par will
the engineers story:
1.-THE train was heavily laden. so let m,
engine rest.
Climbing the grading slowly till we reach
ed the upland's crest
81 put that up to a railroad man ono
and he told me with much emphasi
that any engineer who let his engin
rest on an upgrade with heavily load
ed train would be chased off the RICH
of way with bricks-if he got his trail
through, which he probably wouldn't
The chances are the train would Sill
back and pile up In ditch somewher
while the engine was resting.
"But for supreme idiocy commen'
me to 'Casabianca.' Why, say, if tina
boy had been left in a house and tn
house caught fire and the boy had re
fused to let the firemen rescue him be
cause papa had told him not to G
away you'd be sorry for him. of course
but you'd never think of cracking hiI
up as anything but an example of VI
precedented imbecility! You'd reason
well. that kid didn't have sens
enough to grow up anyway and let
20 at that. Yet the poet goes to wor
and roasts him to death on burnin
ship Just because papa isn't there an
expects you to applaud the 'inhuma
act. It makes me tired
"And the riming that some of thes
big guns do is simply atrocious. a Ii
tie fellow couldn't get across with it
a thousand years. Here take 'Mandi
Law for example:
ION the road to Mandalay,
Where the old fotilla lay,
with our sick beneath the awnings whe
we went to Mandalay.
"What kind of riming is that-la,
lay, lay? It's repetition, not rimin
at all. You couldn't get license to d
that kind of thing, and neither could
SO it's plain enough that Kipling mus