The Rathdrum tribune. (Rathdrum, Idaho) 1903-1963, 1915-06-25
A CAUTIOUS CRITIC
He DaIlies With Some Noted
Verse Makers and Kicks.
TOO MUCH POETIC LICENSE.

inc Big Guns OF Literature, In Hia
Opinion, Take Liberties the Little
Ones Would Not Dare Take and
Cites Examples to Prove His Case.
I've been dipping into poetry" re-
marked the casual caller, mot as a
writer, you understand, but as a read
er. At that think could do as well
as some of them If could also write
my own license.
The mere versifier must stick to all
the rules of the game or be treated as
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 one
could do under a regular journeyman
poets license.
Take Lochinvar,' for instance:
$50 light to the Group the fair lady he
swung;
So light to the saddle before her he
sprung!
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 poet
himself would license a poet to make
his hero do such 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 a man I'D as
riding unarmed when he carried a
broadsword that ranked with the
weapons of those days about where a
machine gun does now? We wouldn't
boast Of the nerve of man these days
who went to call on his ladylOWe with
gatllng, would WEI
These poetry heroes do such very
foolish thingsi There's also 'Horatius,'
you know:
so he spake and speaking, sheathed
His good sword by his side.
Ana, with his harness on his back,
Plunged headlong In the tide
Can you imagine it? A 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
supremely ridiculous, and no one but a
major poet would have dared even hint
at such thing. What Horatius really
did, Ii he had the sense of brass pup,
was to jump In feet first so that he
could begin churning himself to the
EnT1Arn m "a he 1akx IL ~,
but It's when he monkeys with
ships and railroad trains that the poet J
becomes most absurd:
We are lostp the captain shouted
AS he staggered down the stairs
Remember that old favorite, illus |
trating the power of faith? Read 1t to |
a seafaring man some day and hear /
MIN snort. Why, a captain who'd leave !.
his post In a storm and go skipping |
down to the cabin to throw scare |
into his passengers couldn't hold a Job
as mule driver for canal boat
rink of It'll great storm, when he's
needed to handle the ship, and the
poet sends him believing into the cab
In to start panie-with no reason for
1t either, for we learn later that they
anchored safe in harbor when the sun
was shining clearI It's on a par with
the engineers story:
1.-THE train was heavily laden so I.let my
engine rest
Climbing the grading SLOWLY TN va,raaoh-
ed the uplands crest.
II put that up to railroad man once
and he told me with much emphasis
that any engineer who let his engine
rest on an upgrade with 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 ditch somewhere
while the engine was resting.
but for supreme idfocy commend
me to 'Casabianca.' Why, say, IL that
boy had been left In a house and the
mouse caught fire and the boy had re-
FUSED TO let the f1remen 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 I'M
precedented imbecilityl You'd reason.
Well, that kid didn't have sense
enough to grow up anyway and let 1t
go at that Yet the poet goes to work
md roasts him to death on a burning
snip just because papa isn't there and
expects you to applaud the inhuman
act. 1t makes ME tired!
And the rimtng that some of these
big guns do is simply atrocious. A lit
lie fellow couldn't get across with it In
thousand years. Here take 'Manda-
ay.' for example:
On the road to Mandalay.
Where the old fiotilla lay,
With our sick beneath the awnings when
we went TO Mandalay.
What kind of riming is that-lay,
ay, lay? It's repetition, not riming
t all. You couldn't get license to do
hat kind of thing, and neither could I:
0 it's plain enough that Kipling must
ave filed out his own license and the
ublic stood for 1t. 1t isn't fair: but
IS done all the timely the big peo-
lie. Dig into their work a bit and see
II fsn'tn