New-York tribune., 1919-05-04

he seldom returned without bav;,.
completed his song, which he wou,s
then have his wife sing over and
would correct according to the singer,
view of what was most singab,s
though rarely indeed would the nost
consent to sacrifice sense to sound.
when composing Tam o. Shanter,
Burns worked always in the open air
and without writing materials. The
time was an autumn afternoon or even.
ing-his favorite hour and season for
composition-and the place a green
walk by the side of the NTH, which
there runs strong, and may we'll have
been in flood from the autumnal rains
On this occasion his wife does not seem
to have guessed how he might be en-
gagged, for she went out with her chill
dren to look for him. What she saw
however, led her to think better of her
purpose, and gathering the children to
her she withdrew without interruptinc
him. In the rapture of inspiration
ulating and muttering to himself like
one distraught. the tears rolling down
his cheeks. 1t was one of the great
creative moments of his life, and il ia
pretty clear that he beheld neither wiSe
nor children, but only a vision Of the
Haunted Kirk, ablaze with light, and
within-the witches dance.
ssSHELLEY, like Burns, found the
sight of natural objects inspir-
ing, but instead of resting content, as
Burns did, with those nearest at hand.
he would seek out the rarcst combina-
tions~of natural beauty. At NARROW.
at Keswick, in Wales, in Switzerland.
most of all in Italy, he was ever in
quest of eartNss lovelest and most
impressive scenes. Early in 1919 Shell
ley, then twentysix years old, was liv-
ing in Rome and working at his Pro
metheus Unbound which may be re-
garded as his highest achievement.
The second and third acts says Pro-
fessor Dowden, were wrought out amid
surroundings fitted to sustain his i'm
agination at its highest endeavors.'
The place was the Baths of Caracalla.
perfect wilderness of ruins, inclosing
within walls of stupendous height SIX
enormous chambers, interspersed with
riven towers and winding paths, the
whole being muffled and overgrown with
luxuriant vegetation. But let Shelley
himself describe it.
Never says he, was any desola-
tion more sublime and lively The per-
pendicular wall of ruin is cloven into
steep ravines filed up with Towering
shrubs, whose twisted roots are knotted
in the riffs of the stones. At every
step pinnacles of shattered stone group
into new combinations of effect. and
tower above the lofty yet level walls,
as the distant mountains change their
the plain
"Another poet whose method of COM
position excites curiosity is Gerard de
Nerval, who in the last sad days before
his suicide was to be met with on the
public benches of Paris, committing his
verse to any scrap Of paper the wind
might blow in his direction.
"De Quincy rated the stimulus of
opium far above that of alcohol Wine,
he says in effect, hurries man out
of himself, whereas opium lights a
lamp within his brain and gives him
godlike command of all his faculties.
De Quincy's description of the interior
at Grasmere on a night devoted to
opium is probably too we'll known TO
bear quotation. The date referred to
is the winter of 1816-'17, and the au-
thor insists that a tempest shall be
raging, IN order that the blazing hearth
and curtained library may attain their
maximum of coziness by contrast.
Nepenthe stands at his elbow in a de-
canter Of quart capacity, whilst a
fair and kind domestic genius dispenses
tea from what he would fain were an
eternal teapot seeing that he intends
to go on tea drinking from at night
to in the morning. First to imbibe
the deleterious drug and then disperse
it through his system with copious
draughts of tea was his process Wis
ions of beauty and terror were then
at his command. But it is well to re-
member that opium does not create
these things; it merely sets its slave
And the dreams of the IN
imaginative man remain unimaginativo.
though he should swallow dococtions
from all the poppy fields of Asia Minor.
1t is but fair to De Quincy to add that
the section Immediately following the
passage l have paraphrased is headed
The Pains of Opium and describes
with terrific force the Nemesis Of in
dulgence, the appalling struggle
through which the victim has to pass
IN order to free himself from bonds
too thoughtlessly assumed.
% HAS been given to few poets to
enjoy a supremacy equal to Ten
nyson's. During his reign Of wcllnigh
halt a century he was the national poet.
Iennyson's foibles were all on the sur
lace and masked deep humanity be-
meath superficial misanthropy. His
hatred of being observed or intruded
on was notorious, and, as many who
understood him imperfectly believed,
was carried to laughable lengths AS
matter of fact, no poet ever laid out