FROM THE INTRODUCTION. There breathes no being but has some pretence To that fine instinct called poetic sense; The rudest savage, roaming through the wild; The simplest rustic, bending o'er his child; 1 This Academic Poem presents the simple and partial views of a young person trained after the schools of classical English verse as represented by Pope, Goldsmith, and Campbell, with whose lines his memory was early stocked. It will be observed that it deals chiefly with the constructive side of the poet's function. That which makes him a poet is not the power of writing melodious rhymes, it is not the possession of ordinary human sensibilities nor even of both these qualities in connection with each other. I should rather say, if I were now called upon to define it, it is the power of transfiguring the experiences and shows of life into an aspect which comes from his imagination and kindles that of others. Emotion is its stimulus and language furnishes its expression; but these are not all, as some might infer was the doctrine of the poem before the reader. A common mistake made by young persons who suppose themselves to have poetical gift is that their own spiritual exaltation finds a true expression in the conventional phrases which are borrowed from the voices of the singers whose inspiration they think they share. Looking at this poem as an expression of some aspects of the ars poetica, with some passages which I can read even at this mature period of life without blushing for them, it may stand as the most serious representation of my early ef forts. Intended as it was for public delivery, many of its paragraphs may betray the fact by their somewhat rhetorical and sonorous character. (Author's Note.) Fits like mosaic in the lines that gird Fast in its place each many-angled word; From Saxon lips Anacreon's numbers glide, As once they melted on the Teian tide, And, fresh transfused, the Iliad thrills again From Albion's cliffs as o'er Achaia's plain ! The proud heroic, with its pulse-like beat, Rings like the cymbals clashing as they meet; The sweet Spenserian, gathering as it flows, Sweeps gently onward to its dying close, 80 Where waves on waves in long succession pour, Till the ninth billow melts along the shore; The lonely spirit of the mournful lay, In sable plumage slowly drifts along, Born with mankind, with man's ex panded range And varying fates the poet's numbers change; Thus in his history may we hope to find Some clearer epochs of the poet's mind, As from the cradle of its birth we trace, Slow wandering forth, the patriarchal "Qui vive?" The sentry's musket rings, Pale in the moonlight beams; "Qui vive?" How oft the midnight air How oft the evening breeze has fanned FROM A RHYMED LESSON 1 Yes, dear Enchantress,-wandering far and long, In realms unperfumed by the breath of song, Where flowers ill-flavored shed their sweets around, And bitterest roots invade the ungenial ground, Whose gems are crystals from the Epsom mine, Whose vineyards flow with antimonial wine, Whose gates admit no mirthful feature in, Save one gaunt mocker, the Sardonic grin, Whose pangs are real, not the woes of rhyme That blue-eyed misses warble out of time; 10 Truant, not recreant to thy sacred claim, Older by reckoning, but in heart the same, Freed for a moment from the chains of toil, I tread once more thy consecrated soil; Here at thy feet my old allegiance own, Thy subject still, and loyal to thy throne! My dazzled glance explores the crowded hall; Alas, how vain to hope the smiles of all! This poem was delivered before the Boston Mercantile Library Association, October 14, 1846. My Muse permits no deprecating clause; Modest or vain, she will not be denied One bold confession due to honest pride; And well she knows the drooping veil of song Shall save her boldness from the caviller's wrong. Her sweeter voice the Heavenly Maid imparts To tell the secrets of our aching hearts: For this, a suppliant, captive, prostrate, bound, She kneels imploring at the feet of sound; For this, convulsed in thought's maternal pains, She loads her arms with rhyme's resounding chains; 50 Faint though the music of her fetters be, It lends one charm,-her lips are ever free! Think not I come, in manhood's fiery noon, To steal his laurels from the stage buffoon; His sword of lath the harlequin may wield; Behold the star upon my lifted shield! Though the just critic pass my humble name, And sweeter lips have drained the cup of fame, While my gay stanza pleased the banquet's lords, The soul within was tuned to deeper chords! 60 Say, shall my arms, in other conflicts taught To swing aloft the ponderous mace of thought, Lift, in obedience to a school-girl's law, Mirth's tinsel wand or laughter's tickling straw? Say, shall I wound with satire's rankling spear The pure, warm hearts that bid me welcome here? No! while I wander through the land of dreams, To strive with great and play with trifling themes, Let some kind meaning fill the varied line. You have your judgment; will you trust to mine? 70 |