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            The Poetic Principle       (1850) 
                   by Edgar Allan Poe
 

This version of "The Poetic Principle is from The Works of the Late Edgar Allan
Poe, vol. III, 1850, pp. 1-20. It was published in September 1850. An alternate
version was published on August 31, 1850, in the Home Journal.

THE POETIC PRINCIPLE.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

         IN speaking of the Poetic Principle, I have no design to be either

thorough or profound. While discussing, very much at random, the

essentiality of what we call Poetry, my principal purpose will be to cite

for consideration, some few of those minor English or American poems which

best suit my own taste, or which, upon my own fancy, have left the most

definite impression. By "minor poems" I mean, of course, poems of little

length. And here, in the beginning, permit me to say a few words in regard

to a somewhat peculiar principle, which, whether rightfully or wrongfully,

has always had its influence in my own critical estimate of the poem. I

hold that a long poem does not exist. I maintain that the phrase, "a long

poem," is simply a flat contradiction in terms.

         I need scarcely observe that a poem deserves its title only

inasmuch as it excites, by elevating the soul. The value of the poem is

in the ratio of this elevating excitement. But all excitements are,

through a psychal necessity, transient. That degree of excitement which

would entitle a poem to be so called at all, cannot be sustained throughout

a composition of any great length. After the lapse of half an hour, at

the very utmost, it flags —fails —a revulsion ensues —and then the

poem is, in effect, and in fact, no longer such.

         There are, no doubt, many who have found difficulty in reconciling

the critical dictum that the "Paradise Lost" is to be devoutly admired

throughout, with the absolute impossibility of maintaining for it, during

perusal, the amount of enthusiasm which [page 2:] that critical dictum

would demand. This great work, in fact, is to be regarded as poetical,

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only when, losing sight of that vital requisite in all works of Art, Unity,

we view it merely as a series of minor poems. If, to preserve its Unity

—its totality of effect or impression—we read it (as would be necessary)

at a single sitting, the result is but a constant alternation of excitement

and depression. After a passage of what we feel to be true poetry, there

follows, inevitably, a passage of platitude which no critical prejudgment

can force us to admire; but if, upon completing the work, we read it again,

omitting the first book —that is to say, commencing with the second —

we shall be surprised at now finding that admirable which we before

condemned —that damnable which we had previously so much admired. It

follows from all this that the ultimate, aggregate, or absolute effect

of even the best epic under the sun, is a nullity: —and this is precisely

the fact.

         In regard to the Iliad, we have, if not positive proof, at least

very good reason for believing it intended as a series of lyrics; but,

granting the epic intention, I can say only that the work is based in an

imperfect sense of art. The modem epic is, of the supposititious ancient

model, but an inconsiderate and blindfold imitation. But the day of these

artistic anomalies is over. If, at any time, any very long poem were

popular in reality, which I doubt, it is at least clear that no very long

poem will ever be popular again.

         That the extent of a poetical work is, ceteris paribus, the

measure of its merit, seems undoubtedly, when we thus state it, a

proposition sufficiently absurd — yet we are indebted for it to the

Quarterly Reviews. Surely there can be nothing in mere size, abstractly

considered — there can be nothing in mere bulk, so far as a volume is

concerned, which has so continuously elicited admiration from these

saturnine pamphlets! A mountain, to be sure, by the mere sentiment of

physical magnitude which it conveys, does impress us with a sense of the

sublime —but no man is impressed after this fashion by the material

grandeur of even "The Columbiad." Even the Quarterlies have not instructed

us to be so impressed by it. As yet, they have not insisted on our

estimating Lamartine by the cubic foot, or Pollock by the pound — [page

3:] but what else are we to infer from their continual plating about

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"sustained effort"? If, by "sustained effort," any little gentleman has

accomplished an epic, let us frankly commend him for the effort —if this

indeed be a thing conk mendable —but let us forbear praising the epic

on the effort's account. It is to be hoped that common sense, in the time

to come, will prefer deciding upon a work of Art rather by the impression

it makes—by the effect it produces —than by the time it took to impress

the effect, or by the amount of "sustained effort" which had been found

necessary in effecting the impression. The fact is, that perseverance is

one thing and genius quite another — nor can all the Quarterlies in

Christendom confound them. By and by, this proposition, with many which

I have been just urging, will be received as self-evident. In the meantime,

by being generally condemned as falsities, they will not be essentially

damaged as truths.

         On the other hand, it is clear that a poem may be improperly brief.

Undue brevity degenerates into mere epigrammatism. A very short poem,

while now and then producing a brilliant or vivid, never produces a

profound or enduring effect. There must be the steady pressing down of

the stamp upon the wax. De Beranger has wrought innumerable things,

pungent and spirit-stirring, but in general they have been too imponderous

to stamp themselves deeply into the public attention, and thus, as so many

feathers of fancy, have been blown aloft only to be whistled down the wind.

         A remarkable instance of the effect of undue brevity in depressing

a poem, in keeping it out of the popular view, is afforded by the following

exquisite little Serenade:

         I arise from dreams of thee

                  In the first sweet sleep of night,

         When the winds are breathing low,

                  And the stars are shining bright.

         I arise from dreams of thee,

                  And a spirit in my feet

         Has led me —who knows how? —

                  To thy chamber-window, sweet!

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         The wandering airs they faint

                  On the dark the silent stream —

         The champak odors fail

                  Like sweet thoughts in a dream; [page 4:]

         The nightingale's complaint,

                  It dies upon her heart,

         As I must die on shine,

                  O, beloved as thou art!

         O, lift me from the grass!

                  I die, I faint, I fail!

         Let thy love in kisses rain

                  On my lips and eyelids pale.

         My cheek is cold and white, alas!

                  My heart beats loud and fast:

         O, press it close to shine again,

                  Where it will break at last.

         Very few perhaps are familiar with these lines —yet no less a

poet than Shelley is their author. Their warm, yet delicate and ethereal

imagination will be appreciated by all, but by none so thoroughly as by

him who has himself arisen from sweet dreams of one beloved to bathe in

the aromatic air of a southern midsummer night.

         One of the finest poems by Willis —the very best in my opinion

which he has ever written —has no doubt, through this same defect of

undue brevity, been kept back from its proper position, not less in the

critical than in the popular view.

         The shadows lay along Broadway,

                  'Twas near the twilight-tide —

         And slowly there a lady fair

                  Was walking in her pride.

         Alone walk'd she; but, viewlessly,

                  Walk'd spirits at her side.

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         Peace charm'd the street beneath her feet,

                  And Honour charm'd the air;

         And all astir looked kind on her,

                  And called her good as fair —

         For all God ever gave to her

                  She kept with chary care.

         She kept with care her beauties rare

                  From lovers warm and true —

         For heart was cold to all but gold,

                  And the rich came not to won,

         But honour'd well her charms to sell.

                  If priests the selling do.

         Now walking there was one more fair —

                  A slight girl, lily-pale;

         And she had unseen company

                  To make the spirit quail — [page 5:]

         'Twixt Want and Scorn she walk'd forlorn,

                  And nothing could avail.

         No mercy now can clear her brow

                  From this world's peace to pray

         For as love's wild prayer dissolved in air,

                  Her woman's heart gave way! —

         But the sin forgiven by Christ in Heaven

                  By man is cursed away!

         In this composition we find it difficult to recognise the Willis

who has written so many mere "verses of society." The lines are not only

richly ideal, but full of energy, while they breathe an earnestness, an

evident sincerity of sentiment, for which we look in vain throughout all

the other works of this author.

         While the epic mania, while the idea that to merit in poetry

prolixity is indispensable, has for some years past been gradually dying

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out of the public mind, by mere dint of its own absurdity, we find it

succeeded by a heresy too palpably false to be long tolerated, but one

which, in the brief period it has already endured, may be said to have

accomplished more in the corruption of our Poetical Literature than all

its other enemies combined. I allude to the heresy of The Didactic. It

has been assumed, tacitly and avowedly, directly and indirectly, that the

ultimate object of all Poetry is Truth. Every poem, it is said, should

inculcate a morals and by this moral is the poetical merit of the work

to be adjudged. We Americans especially have patronized this happy idea,

and we Bostonians very especially have developed it in full. We have taken

it into our heads that to write a poem simply for the poem's sake, and

to acknowledge such to have been our design, would be to confess ourselves

radically wanting in the true poetic dignity and force: —but the simple

fact is that would we but permit ourselves to look into our own souls we

should immediately there discover that under the sun there neither exists

nor can exist any work more thoroughly dignified, more supremely noble,

than this very poem, this poem per se, this poem which is a poem and nothing

more, this poem written solely for the poem's sake.

         With as deep a reverence for the True as ever inspired the bosom

of man, I would nevertheless limit, in some measure, its modes of

inculcation. I would [page 6:] limit to enforce them. I would not enfeeble

them by dissipation. The demands of Truth are severe. She has no sympathy

with the myrtles. All that which is so indispensable in Song is precisely

all that with which she has nothing whatever to do. It is but making her

a flaunting paradox to wreathe her in gems and flowers. In enforcing a

truth we need severity rather than efflorescence of language. We must be

simple, precise, terse. We must be cool, calm, unimpassioned. In a word,

we must be in that mood which, as nearly as possible, is the exact converse

of the poetical. He must be blind indeed who does not perceive the radical

and chasmal difference between the truthful and the poetical modes of

inculcation. He must be theory-mad beyond redemption who, in spite of

these differences, shall still persist in attempting to reconcile the

obstinate oils and waters of Poetry and Truth.

         Dividing the world of mind into its three most immediately obvious

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distinctions, we have the Pure Intellect, Taste, and the Moral Sense. I

place Taste in the middle, because it is just this position which in the

mind it occupies. It holds intimate relations with either extreme; but

from the Moral Sense is separated by so faint a difference that Aristotle

has not hesitated to place some of its operations among the virtues

themselves. Nevertheless we find the offices of the trio marked with a

sufficient distinction. Just as the Intellect concerns itself with Truth,

so Taste informs us of the Beautiful, while the Moral Sense is regardful

of Duty. Of this latter, while Conscience teaches the obligation, and

Reason the expediency, Taste contents herself with displaying the charms:

—waging war upon Vice solely on the ground of her deformity —her

disproportion —her animosity to the fitting, to the appropriate, to the

harmonious — in a word, to Beauty.

         An immortal instinct deep within the spirit of man is thus plainly

a sense of the Beautiful. This it is which administers to his delight in

the manifold forms, and sounds, and odors and sentiments amid which he

exists. And just as the lily is repeated in the lake, or the eyes of

Amaryllis in the mirror, so is the mere oral or written repetition of these

forms, and sounds, and colors, and odors, and sentiments a duplicate

source of de" light. But this mere repetition is not poetry. He who shall

simply sing, with however glowing enthusiasm, or with however vivid a

truth [page 7:] of description, of the sights, and sounds, and odors, and

colors, and sentiments which greet him in common with all mankind —he,

I say, has yet failed to prove his divine title. There is still a something

in the distance which he has been unable to attain. We have still a thirst

unquenchable, to allay which he has not shown us the crystal springs. This

thirst belongs to the immortality of Man. It is at once a consequence and

an indication of his perennial existence. It is the desire of the moth

for the star. It is no mere appreciation of the Beauty before us, but a

wild effort to reach the Beauty above. Inspired by an ecstatic prescience

of the glories beyond the grave, we struggle by multiform combinations

among the things and thoughts of Time to attain a portion of that

Loveliness whose very elements perhaps appertain to eternity alone. And

thus when by Poetry, or when by Music, the most entrancing of the poetic

moods, we find ourselves melted into tears, we weep then, not as the Abbate

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Gravina supposes, through excess of pleasure, but through a certain

petulant, impatient sorrow at our inability to grasp now, wholly, here

on earth, at once and for ever, those divine and rapturous joys of which

through' the poem, or through the music, we attain to but brief and

indeterminate glimpses.

         The struggle to apprehend the supernal Loveliness — this

struggle, on the part of souls fittingly constituted —has given to the

world all that which it (the world) has ever been enabled at once to

understand and to feel as poetic.

         The Poetic Sentiment, of course, may develop itself in various

modes —in Painting, in Sculpture, in Architecture, in the Dance —very

especially in Music —and very peculiarly, and with a wide field, in the

com position of the Landscape Garden. Our present theme, however, has

regard only to its manifestation in words. And here let me speak briefly

on the topic of rhythm. Contenting myself with the certainty that Music,

in its various modes of metre, rhythm, and rhyme, is of so vast a moment

in Poetry as never to be wisely rejected — is so vitally important an

adjunct, that he is simply silly who declines its assistance, I will not

now pause to maintain its absolute essentiality. It is in Music perhaps

that the soul most nearly attains the great end for which, when inspired

by the Poetic Sentiment, it struggles —the creation [page 8:] of supernal

Beauty. It may be, indeed, that here this sublime end is, now and then,

attained in fact. We are often made to feel, with a shivering delight,

that from an earthly harp are stricken notes which cannot have been

unfamiliar to the angels. And thus there can be little doubt that in the

union of Poetry with Music in its popular sense, we shall find the widest

field for the Poetic development. The old Bards and Minnesingers had

advantages which we do not possess —and Thomas Moore, singing his own

songs, was, in the most legitimate manner, perfecting them as poems.

         To recapitulate then: —I would define, in brief, the Poetry of

words as The Rhythmical Creation of Beauty. Its sole arbiter is Taste.

With the Intellect or with the Conscience it has only collateral relations.

Unless incidentally, it has no concern whatever either with Duty or with

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Truth.

         A few words, however, in explanation. That pleasure which is at

once the most pure, the most elevating, and the most intense, is derived,

I maintain, from the contemplation of the Beautiful. In the contemplation

of Beauty we alone find it possible to attain that pleasurable elevation,

or excitement of the soul, which we recognise as the Poetic Sentiment,

and which is so easily distinguished from Truth, which is the satisfaction

of the Reason, or from Passion, which is the excitement of the heart. I

make Beauty, therefore —using the word as inclusive of the sublime —

I make Beauty the province of the poem, simply because it is an obvious

rule of Art that effects should be made to spring as directly as possible

from their causes: —no one as yet having been weak enough to deny that

the peculiar elevation in question is at least most readily attainable

in the poem. It by no means follows, however, that the incitements of

Passion' or the precepts of Duty, or even the lessons of Truth, may not

be introduced into a poem, and with advantage; for they may subserve

incidentally, in various ways, the general purposes of the work: but the

true artist will always contrive to tone them down in proper subjection

to that Beauty which is the atmosphere and the real essence of the poem.

         I cannot better introduce the few poems which I shall present for

your consideration, than by the citation of the Proem to Longfellow's

"Waif" [page 9:]

         THE day is done, and the darkness

                  Falls from the wings of Night,

         As a feather is wafted downward

                  From an Eagle in his flight.

         I see the lights of the village

                  Gleam through the rain and the mist,

         And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me,

                  That my soul cannot resist;

         A feeling of sadness and longing,

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               That is not akin to pain,

And resembles sorrow only

               As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,

               Some simple and heartfelt lay,

That shall soothe this restless feeling,

               And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,

               Not from the bards sublime,

Whose distant footsteps echo

               Through the corridors of Time.

For, like strains of martial music,

               Their mighty thoughts suggest

Life's endless toil and endeavour;

               And to-night I long for rest.

Read from some humbler poet,

               Whose songs gushed from his heart,

As showers from the clouds of summer,

               Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who through long days of labor,

               And nights devoid of ease,

Still heard in his soul the music

               Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet

               The restless pulse of care,

And come like the benediction

               That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume

               The poem of thy choice,

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         And lend to the rhyme of the poet

                  The beauty of thy voice.

         And the night shall be filled with music,

                  And the cares that infest the day

         Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,

                  And as silently steal away.

         With no great range of imagination, these lines have been justly

admired for their delicacy of expression. Some of the images are very

effective. Nothing can be better than — [page 10:]

         —————— the bards sublime,

                  Whose distant footsteps echo

         Down the corridors of Time.

The idea of the last quatrain is also very effective. The poem on the whole,

however, is chiefly to be admired for the graceful insouciance of its metre,

so well in accordancewith the character of the sentiments, and especially

for the ease of the general manner. This "ease" or naturalness, in a

literary style, it has long been the fashion to regard as ease in

appearance alone —as a point of really difficult attainment. But not

so: —a natural manner is difficult only to him who should never meddle

with it — to the unnatural. It is but the result of writing with the

understanding, or with the instinct, that the tone, in composition, should

always be that which the mass of mankind would adopt — and must

perpetually vary, of course, with the occasion. The author who, after the

fashion of "The North American Review," should be upon all occasions

merely "quiet," must necessarily upon many occasions be simply silly, or

stupid; and has no more right to be considered "easy" or "natural" than

a Cockney exquisite, or than the sleeping Beauty in the waxworks.

         Among the minor poems of Bryant, none has so much impressed me

as the one which he entitles "June." I quote only a portion of it: —

         There, through the long, long summer hours,

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              The golden light should lie,

And thick young herbs and groups of flowers

              Stand in their beauty by.

The oriole should build and tell

His love-tale, close beside my cell;

              The idle butterfly

Should rest him there, and there be heard

The housewife-bee and humming bird.

And what, if cheerful shouts at noon,

              Come, from the village sent,

Or songs of maids, beneath the moon,

              With fairy laughter blent?

And what if, in the evening light,

Betrothed lovers walk in sight

              Of my low monument?

I would the lovely scene around

Might know no sadder sight nor sound.

I know, I know I should not see

              The season's glorious show, [page 11:]

Nor would its brightness shine for me;

              Nor its wild music flow;

But if, around my place of sleep,

The friends I love should come to weep,

              They might not haste to go.

Soft airs and song, and the light and bloom,

Should keep them lingering by my tomb.

These to their soften'd hearts should bear

              The thoughts of what has been,

And speak of one who cannot share

              The gladness of the scene;

Whose part in all the pomp that fills

The circuit of the summer hills,

              Is — that his grave is green;

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         And deeply would their hearts rejoice

         To hear again his living voice.

         The rhythmical flow here is even voluptuous —nothing could be

more melodious. The poem has always affected me in a remarkable manner.

The intense melancholy which seems to well up, perforce, to the surface

of all the poet's cheerful sayings about his grave, we find thrilling us

to the soul —while there is the truest poetic elevation in the thrill.

The impression left is one of a pleasurable sadness. And if, in the

remaining compositions which I shall introduce to you, there be more or

less of a similar tone always apparent, let me remind you that (how or

why we know not) this certain taint of sadness is inseparably connected

with all the higher manifestations of true Beauty. It is, nevertheless,

         A feeling of sadness and longing

                  That is not akin to pain,

         And resembles sorrow only

                  As the mist resembles the rain.

The taint of which I speak is clearly perceptible even in a poem so full

of brilliancy and spirit as "The Health" of Edward Coate Pinckney: —

         I fill this cup to one made up

                  Of loveliness alone,

         A woman, of her gentle sex

                  The seeming paragon;

         To whom the better elements

                  And kindly stars have given

         A form so fair that, like the air,

                  'Tis less of earth than heaven.

         Her every tone is music's own,

                  Like those of morning birds,

         And something more than melody

                  Dwells ever in her words; [page 12:]

         The coinage of her heart are they,

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                  And from her lips each flows

         As one may see the burden'd bee

                  Forth issue from the rose.

         Affections are as thoughts to her,

                  The measures of her hours;

         Her feelings have the flagrancy,

                  The freshness of young flowers;

         And lovely passions, changing oft,

                  So fill her, she appears

         The image of themselves by turns, —

                  The idol of past years!

         Of her bright face one glance will trace

                  A picture on the brain,

         And of her voice in echoing hearts

                  A sound must long remain;

         But memory, such as mine of her,

                  So very much endears,

         When death is nigh my latest sigh

                  Will not be life's, but hers.

         I fill'd this cup to one made up

                  Of loveliness alone,

         A woman, of her gentle sex

                  The seeming paragon —

         Her health! and would on earth there stood,

                  Some more of such a frame,

         That life might be all poetry,

                  And weariness a name.

         It was the misfortune of Mr. Pinckney to have been born too far

south. Had he been a New Englander, it is probable that he would have been

ranked as the first of American lyrists by that magnanimous cabal which

has so long controlled the destinies of American Letters, in conducting

the thing called "The North American Review." The poem just cited is

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especially beautiful; but the poetic elevation which it induces we must

refer chiefly to our sympathy in the poet's enthusiasm. We pardon his

hyperboles for the evident earnestness with which they are uttered.

         It was by no means my design, however, to expatiate upon the merits

of what I should read you. These will necessarily speak for themselves.

Boccalini, in his "Advertisements from Parnassus," tells us that Zoilus

once presented Apollo a very caustic criticism upon a very admirable book:

—whereupon the god asked him for the beauties of the work. He replied

that he only busied himself about the errors. On hearing this, Apollo,

handing [page 13:] him a sack of unwinnowed wheat, bade him pick out all

the chaff for his reward.

         Now this fable answers very well as a hit at the critics —but

I am by no means sure that the god was in the right. I am by no means certain

that the true limits of the critical duty are not grossly misunderstood.

Excellence, in a poem especially, may be considered in the light of an

axiom, which need only be properly put, to become self-evident. It is not

excellence if it require to be demonstrated as such: —and thus to point

out too particularly the merits of a work of Art, is to admit that they

are not merits altogether.

         Among the "Melodies" of Thomas Moore is one whose distinguished

character as a poem proper seems to have been singularly left out of view.

I allude to his lines beginning —"Come, rest in this bosom." The intense

energy of their expression is not surpassed by anything in Byron. There

are two of the lines in which a sentiment is conveyed that embodies the

all in all of the divine passion of Love —a sentiment which, perhaps,

has found its echo in more, and in more passionate, human hearts than any

other single sentiment ever embodied in words: —

         Come, rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer

         Though the herd have fled from thee, thy home is still here;

         Here still is the smile, that no cloud can o'ercast,

         And a heart and a hand all thy own to the last.

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         Oh! what was love made for, if 'tis not the same

         Through joy and through torment, through glory and shame?

         I know not, I ask not, if guilt's in that heart,

         I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art.

         Thou hast call'd me thy Angel in moments of bliss,

         And thy Angel I'll be, 'mid the horrors of this, —

         Through the furnace, unshrinking, thy steps to pursue,

         And shield thee, and save thee, — or perish there too!

It has been the fashion of late days to deny Moore Imagination, while

granting him Fancy — a distinction originating with Coleridge —than

whom no man more fully comprehended the great powers of Moore. The fact

is, that the fancy of this poet so far predominates over all his other

faculties, and over the fancy of all other men, as to have induced, very

naturally, the idea that he is fanciful only. But never was there a greater

mistake. Never was a grosser wrong done the fame of a true poet. In the

compass [page 14:] of the English language I can call to mind no poem more

profoundly —more weirdly imaginative, in the best sense, than the lines

commencing—"I would I were by that dim lake"—which are the composition

of Thomas Moore. I regret that I am unable to remember them.

         One of the noblest —and, speaking of Fancy —one of the most

singularly fanciful of modern poets, was Thomas Hood. His "Fair Ines" had

always for me an inexpressible charm: —

         O saw ye not fair Ines?

                  She's gone into the West,

         To dazzle when the sun is down,

                  And rob the world of rest;

         She took our daylight with her,

                  The smiles that we love best,

         With morning blushes on her cheek,

                  And pearls upon her breast.

         O turn again, fair Ines,

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             Before the fall of night,

For fear the moon should shine alone,

             And stars unrivalltd bright;

And blessed will the lover be

             That walks beneath their light,

And breathes the love against thy cheek

              I dare not even write!

Would I had been, fair Ines,

             That gallant cavalier,

Who rode so gaily by thy side,

             And whisper'd thee so near!

Were there no bonny dames at home

             Or no true lovers here,

That he should cross the seas to win

             The dearest of the dear?

I saw thee, lovely Ines,

             Descend along the shore,

With bands of noble gentlemen,

             And banners waved before;

And gentle youth and maidens gay,

             And snowy plumes they wore;

It would have been a beauteous dream,

              If it had been no more!

Alas, alas, fair Ines,

             She went away with song,

With music waiting on her steps,

             And shootings of the throng;

But some were sad and felt no mirth,

             But only Music's wrong,

In sounds that sang Farewell, Farewell,

             To her you've loved so long. [page 15:]

Farewell, farewell, fair Ines,

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                  That vessel never bore

         So fair a lady on its deck,

                  Nor danced so light before, —

         Alas for pleasure on the sea,

                  And sorrow on the shorel

         The smile that blest one lover's heart

                  Has broken many morel

         "The Haunted House," by the same author, is one of the truest poems

ever written, —one of the truest, one of the most unexceptionable, one

of the most thoroughly artistic, both in its theme and in its execution.

It is, moreover, powerfully ideal —imaginative. I regret that its length

renders it unsuitable for the purposes of this lecture. In place of it

permit me to offer the universally appreciated "Bridge of Sighs."

...... One more Unfortunate,

Weary of breath,

Rashly importunate

Gone to her death!

Take her up tenderly,

Lift her with care; —

Fashion'd so slenderly,

Young and so fair!

Look at her garments

Clinging like cerements;

Whilst the wave constantly

Drips from her clothing;

Take her up instantly,

Loving not loathing.

Touch her not scornfully;

Think of her mournfully,

Gently and humanly;

Not of the stains of her,

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All that remains of her

Now is pure womanly.

Make no deep scrutiny

Into her mutiny

Rash and undutiful;

Past all dishonor,

Death has left on her

Only the beautiful.

Still, for all slips of hers,

One of Eve's family —

Wipe those poor lips of hers

Oozing so clammily, [page 16:]

The bleak wind of March

Made her tremble and shiver,

But not the dark arch,

Or the black flowing river:

Mad from life's history,

Glad to death's mystery,

Swift to be hurl'd —

Anywhere, anywhere

Out of the world!

In she plunged boldly,

No matter how coldly

The rough river ran, —

Over the brink of it,

Picture it, — think of it,

Dissolute Man!

Lave in it, drink of it

Then, if you can!

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Take her up tenderly,

Lift her with care;

Fashion'd so slenderly,

Young, and so fair!

..... Loop up her tresses

Escaped from the comb,

Her fair auburn tresses;

Whilst wonderment guesses

Where was her home?

Who was her father?

Who was her mother?

Had she a sister?

Had she a brother?

Or was there a dearer one

Still, and a nearer one

Yet, than all other?

Alas! for the rarity

Of Christian charity

Under the sun!

Oh! it was pitiful!

Near a whole city full,

Home she had none.

Sisterly, brotherly,

Fatherly, motherly,

Feelings had changed:

Love, by harsh evidence,

Thrown from its eminence;

Even God's providence

Seeming estranged.

Where the lamps quiver

Sor far in the river,

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With many a light

From window and casement

From garret to basement,

She stood, with amazement,

Houseless by night [page 16:]

Ere her limbs frigidly

Stiffen too rigidly,

Decently, — kindly, —

Smooth and compose them;

And her eyes, close them,

Staring so blindly!

Dreadfully staring

Through muddy impurity,

As when with the daring

Last look of despairing

Fixed on futurity.

Perhishing gloomily,

Spurred by contumely,

Cold inhumanity,

Burning insanity,

Into her rest, —

Cross her hands humbly,

As if praying dumbly,

Over her breast!

Owning her weakness,

Her evil behaviour,

And leaving, with meekness,

Her sins to her Saviour!

         The vigour of this poem is no less remarkable than its pathos.

The versification although carrying the fanciful to the very verge of the

fantastic, is nevertheless admirably adapted to the wild insanity which

is the thesis of the poem.

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         Among the minor poems of Lord Byron is one which has never received

from the critics the praise which it undoubtedly deserves: —

         Though the day of my destiny's over,

                  And the star of my fate hath declined

         Thy soft heart refused to discover

                  The faults which so many could find;

         Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted,

                  It shrunk not to share it with me,

         And the love which my spirit hath painted

                  It never hath found but in thee.

         Then when nature around me is smiling,

                  The last smile which answers to mine,

         I do not believe it beguiling,

                  Because it reminds me of shine;

         And when winds are at war with the ocean,

                  As the breasts I believed in with me,

         If their billows excite an emotion,

                  It is that they bear me from thee. [page 17:]

         Though the rock of my last hope is shivered,

                  And its fragments are sunk in the wave,

         Though I feel that my soul is delivered

                  To pain — it shall not be its slave.

         There is many a pang to pursue me:

                  They may crush, but they shall not contemn —

         They may torture, but shall not subdue me —

                  'Tis of thee that I think — not of them.

         Though human, thou didst not deceive me,

                  Though woman, thou didst not forsake,

         Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me,

                  Though slandered, thou never couldst shake, —

         Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me,

                  Though parted, it was not to fly,

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         Though watchful, 'twas not to defame me,

                  Nor mute, that the world might belie.

         Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it,

                  Nor the war of the many with one —

         If my soul was not fitted to prize it,

                  'Twas folly not sooner to shun:

         And if dearly that error hath cost me,

                  And more than I once could foresee,

         I have found that whatever it lost me,

                  It could not deprive me of thee.

         From the wreck of the past, which hath perished,

                  Thus much I at least may recall,

         It hath taught me that which I most cherished

                  Deserved to be dearest of all:

         In the desert a fountain is springing,

                  In the wide waste there still is a tree,

         And a bird in the solitude singing,

                Which speaks to my spirit of thee.

Although the rhythm here is one of the most difficult, the versification

could scarcely be improved. No nobler theme ever engaged the pen of poet.

It is the soul-elevating idea that no man can consider himself entitled

to complain of Fate while in his adversity he still retains the unwavering

love of woman.

         From Alfred Tennyson, although in perfect sincerity I regard him

as the noblest poet that ever lived, I have left myself time to cite only

a very brief specimen. I call him, and think him the noblest of poets,

not because the impressions he produces are at all times the most profound

—not because the poetical excitement which he induces is at all times

the most intense —but because it is at all times the most ethereal —

in other words, the most elevating and most pure. No poet is so little

of the [page 18:] earth, earthy. What I am about to read is from his last

long poem, "The Princess":

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                  Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,

         Tears from the depth of some divine despair

         Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,

         In looking on the happy Autumn fields,

         And thinking of the days that are no more.

                  Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,

         That brings our friends up from the underworld,

         Sad as the last which reddens over one

         That sinks with all we love below the verge;

         So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

                  Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns

         The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds

         To dying ears, when unto dying eyes

         The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;

         So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

                  Dear as remember'd kisses after death,

         And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd

         On lips that are for others; deep as love,

         Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;

         O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

         Thus, although in a very cursory and imperfect manner, I have

endeavoured to convey to you my conception of the Poetic Principle. It

has been my purpose to suggest that, while this principle itself is

strictly and simply the Human Aspiration for Supernal Beauty, the

manifestation of the Principle is always found in an elevating excitement

of the soul, quite independent of that passion which is the intoxication

of the Heart, or of that truth which is the satisfaction of the Reason.

For in regard to passion, alas! its tendency is to degrade rather than

to elevate the Soul. Love, on the contrary —Love —the true, the divine

Eros — the Uranian as distinguished from the Diona~an Venus — is

unquestionably the purest and truest of all poetical themes. And in regard

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to Truth, if, to be sure, through the attainment of a truth we are led

to perceive a harmony where none was apparent before, we experience at

once the true poetical effect; but this effect is referable to the harmony

alone, and not in the least degree to the truth which merely served to

render the harmony manifest.

         We shall reach, however, more immediately a distinct conception

[page 19:] of what the true Poetry is, by mere reference to a few of the

simple elements which induce in the Poet himself the poetical effect He

recognises the ambrosia which nourishes his soul in the bright orbs that

shine in Heaven — in the volutes of the flower — in the clustering of

low shrubberies — in the waving of the grain-fields —in the slanting

of tall eastern trees — in the blue distance of mountains — in the

grouping of clouds — in the twinkling of half-hidden brooks — in the

gleaming of silver rivers —in the repose of sequestered lakes —in the

star-mirroring depths of lonely wells. He perceives it in the songs of

birds — in the harp of Bolos — in the sighing of the night-wind — in

the repining voice of the forest—in the surf that complains to the shore

— in the fresh breath of the woods — in the scent of the violet — in

the voluptuous perfume of the hyacinth — in the suggestive odour that

comes to him at eventide from far distant undiscovered islands, over dim

oceans, illimitable and unexplored. He owns it in all noble thoughts —

in all unworldly motives — in all holy impulses — in all chivalrous,

generous, and self-sacrificing deeds. He feels it in the beauty of woman

— in the grace of her step — in the lustre of her eye — in the melody

of her voice — in her soft laughter, in her sigh — in the harmony of

the rustling of her robes. He deeply feels it in her winning endearments

— in her burning enthusiasms — in her gentle charities — in her meek

and devotional endurances —but above all —ah, far above all, he kneels

to it —he worships it in the faith, in the purity, in the strength, in

the altogether divine majesty — of her love.

         Let me conclude by —the recitation of yet another brief poem

—one very different in character from any that I have before quoted.

It is by Motherwell, and is called "The Song of the Cavalier." With our

modern and altogether rational ideas of the absurdity and impiety of

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warfare, we are not precisely in that frame of mind best adapted to

sympathize with the sentiments, and thus to appreciate thereal excellence

of the poem. To do this fully we must identify ourselves in fancy with

the soul of the old cavalier: —

         Then mounte! then mounte, brave gallants all,

                  And don your helmes amaine:

         Deathe's couriers. Fame and Honor call

                  Us to the field againe. [page 20:]

         No shrewish teares shall fill your eye

                  When the sword-hilt's in our hand, —

         Heart-whole we'll part, and no whit sighe

                  For the fayrest of the land;

         Let piping swaine, and craven wight,

                  Thus weepe and poling crye,

         Our business is like men to fight,

                  And hero-like to die     !