Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-02-28

Filled with lines one viii linger over,
Robert Bridges THE Testament of
Beauty" intrigues the poetic taste.
This taste Is something distinct in the
world Of letters. 1t demands no close
reasoning, no mathematical demonstra-
tons.
The poetic taste perhaps likes best
words din1ly understood, for then 1t
feels certain that the way Is left open
for reading into them what the mind
and heart choose to see there.
This gives to poetry distinction
possessed by no other literary means.
It is almost as II words took on buoy
ancy, added life, when put into poetic
form. And this is, 1t must be admitted,
q thing which only the POLITICALLY in
clined know.
Thus the poet faster has possession
unknown to the strict word Journalist,
who for the life of him will read into
sentence no more than there Is in it.
But the poet, unmindful both of gram
mar and logic, chooses to see words as
winged things, flying their own
thoughts as they go.
The poetry lover, therefore, finds in
the poet laureate's supreme effort much
that satisfies him, although he might
be at . loss how to convey an idea Of
this pleasure to others.
X \ II
Dimly understood words to linger
over--in them he finds surcease from
the hard and fast paragraphs of the
daily newspapers, which are concerned
with stern facts. He finds relief from
their dreams are their dreams, rather
than his.
In poems such as "The Testament"
he Is able to put scarcely discerned
meanings, which he hopes In time will
| flower into perfection. This is the fine
fruit of poetry. He is. as 1t were, "sus-
tanned by an unheard promise"
There is phrase Of the sort of which
we have been speaking. Sustained by
an unheard promise" somehow seems to
convey more than it says. Used by the
poet Of bees. drowsily waiting for warm
weather, 1t equally may apply to human
beings, hoping for immortality.
The poet speaks slightingly of 'bee-
minded men," perhaps as good a de-
scription as any of those who insist on
talking of life only In terms Of dollars,
chasing their brethren as $4,000 men,"
etc.
Such crude materialists know not that
"the high goal Of our great
endeavor
is spiritual attainment, individual
at all cost to be sought and at all
to be won at all cost and at all cost
assured"
To the lay reader there may seem too
many costs" in those lines, but q
closer application will show him that
they are well in line with the general
metrical construction of this curiously
interesting poem. Here he fndS an
attempt to give English words quanti-
tative measurements, something hith-
erto restricted mostly to Latin. Yet
there is a strange resemblance to the
"barbaric yawp" of Americas Walt
Whitman, so close is poetry to prose.
It is probable that few readers wiz be
able to read these lines aloud to their
fullest poetical beauty, yet perhaps few
who will not better read them aloud
than to themselves.
Consider the following verses upon
the child. Wordsworth, in his lines on
immortality, sang more sweetly, yet
rather less to the point. Bridges says:
''Yet for the gift Of his virgin inteili-
gence
q child is ever our nearest pictur Of
happiness:
It's . delight TO look on him In
tireless play
attentively occupied with Q world Of
wonders,
20 rich in toys and playthings that
naked Nature
wer enough without the marvellous
iaventary Of man:
wherewith he toyeth no less, and
learning too the lore
Of cypher and alphabet anon getteth
to con
the fair uncial comment that
science hath penn'd
CLOSING the Macy hieroglyph Of
Natures book;
and as he ever drinketh Of the
IiviVR vvafaNa