IV THE SPARK FROM HEAVEN ARE we venture into the holy of holies, where DA the gods are said to come upon the poet? Is there not danger that the divine spark which kindles his song may prove a bolt to annihilate us, because of our presumptuous intrusion? What voice is this, which meets us at the threshold? Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! And close your eyes in holy dread It is Coleridge, warning us of our peril, if we remain open-eyed and curious, trying to surprise the secret of the poet's visitation. Yet are we not tolerably safe? We are under the guidance of an initiate; the poet himself promises to unveil the mystery of his inspiration for us. As Vergil kept Dante unscathed by the flames of the divine vision, will not our poet protect us? Let us enter. But another doubt, a less thrilling one, bids us pause. Is it indeed the heavenly mystery that we are bid gaze upon, or are we to be the dupe of selfdeceived impostors? Our intimacy is with poets of the last two centuries,-not the most inspired period in the history of poetry. And in the ranks of our multitudinous verse-writers, it is not the most prepossessing who are loudest in promising us a fair spectacle. How harsh-voiced and stammering are some of these obscure apostles who are offering to exhibit the entire mystery of their gift of tongues! We see more impressive figures, to be sure. Here is the saturnine Poe, who with contemptuous smile assures us that we are welcome to all the secrets of his creative frenzies. Here is our exuberant Walt Whitman, crying, "Stop this day and night with me, and you shall possess the origin of all poems.' But though we scan every face twice, we find here no Shakespeare promising us the key to creation of a Hamlet. Still, is it not well to follow a forlorn hope? Among the less vociferous, here are singers whose faces are alight with a mysterious radiance. Though they promise us little, saying that they themselves are blinded by the transcendent vision, so that they appear as men groping in darkness, yet may they not unawares afford us some glimpse of their transfiguration? If we refuse the poet's revelation, we have no better way of arriving at the truth. The scientist offers us little in this field; and his account of inspiration is as cold and comfortless as a chemical formula. Of course the scientist is amused by this objection to him, and asks, "What more do you 1 Song of Myself. expect from the effusions of poets? Will not whatever secret they reveal prove an open one? What will it profit you to learn that the milk of Paradise nourishes the poetic gift, since it is not handled by an earthly dairy?" But when he speaks thus, our scientific friend is merely betraying his ignorance regarding the nature of poetry. Longinus,1 and after him, Sidney, long ago pointed out its peculiar action, telling us that it is the poet's privilege to make us partakers of his ecstasy. So, if the poet describes his creative impulses, why should he not make us sharers of them? This is not an idle question, for surely Plato, that involuntary poet, has had just this effect upon his readers. Have not his pictures, in the Phædrus and the Ion, of the artist's ecstasy touched Shelley and the lesser Platonic poets of our time with the enthusiasm he depicts? Incidentally, the figure of the magnet which Plato uses in the Ion may arouse hope in the breasts of us, the humblest readers of Shelley and Woodberry. For as one link gives power of suspension to another, so that a ring which is not touched by the magnet is yet thrilled with its force, so one who is out of touch with Plato's supernal melodies, may be sensitized by the virtue imparted to his nineteenth century disciples, who are able to "temper this planetary music for mortal ears." Let us not lose heart, at the beginning of our "Apology for Poetry. investigation, though our greatest poets admit that they themselves have not been able to keep this creative ecstasy for long. To be sure this is disillusioning. We should prefer to think of their silent intervals as times of insight too deep for expression; as Anna Branch phrases it, When they went This pleasing idea has been fostered in us by poems of appeal to silent singers. But we have manifold confessions that it is not commonly thus with the non-productive poet. Not merely do we possess many requiems sung by erst-while makers over their departed gift, but there is much verse indicating that, even in the poet's prime, his genius is subject to a mysterious ebb and flow. Though he has The Silence of the Poets. See Swinburne, A Ballad of Appeal to Christina Rossetti; and Francis Thompson, To a Poet Breaking Silence. 'See especially Scott, Farewell to the Muse; Kirke White, Hushed is the Lyre; Landor, Dull is My Verse, and To Wordsworth; James Thomson, B. V., The Fire that Filled My Heart of Old, and The Poet and the Muse; Joaquin Miller, Vale; Andrew Lang, The Poet's Apology; Francis Thompson, The Cloud's Swan Song. See Burns, Second Epistle to Lapraik; Keats, To My Brother George; Winthrop Mackworth Praed, Letter from Eaton; William Cullen Bryant, The Poet; Oliver Wendell Holmes, Invita Minerva; Emerson, The Poet, Merlin; James Gates Percival, Awake My Lyre, Invocation; J. H. West, To the Muse, After Silence; Robert Louis Stevenson, The Laureate to an Academy Class Dinner; Alice Meynell, To one Poem in Silent Time; Austin Dobson, A Garden Idyl; James Stevens, A Reply; Richard Middleton, The Artist; Franklin Henry Giddings, Song; Benjamin R. C. Low, Inspiration; Robert Haven Schauffler, The Wonderful Hour; Henry A. Beers, The Thankless Muse; Karl Wilson Baker, Days. ,, 1 she yet faith that he is not "widowed of his muse,' torments him with all the ways of a coquette, so that he sadly assures us his mistress "is sweet to win, but bitter to keep." 2 The times when she solaces him may be pitifully infrequent. Rossetti, musing over Coleridge, says that his inspired moments were Like desert pools that show the stars Once in long leagues.3 Yet, even so, upon such moments of insight rest all the poet's claims for his superior personality. It is the potential greatness enabling him at times to have speech with the gods that makes the rest of his life sacred. Emerson is more outspoken than most poets; he is not perhaps at variance with their secret convictions, when he describes himself: I, who cower mean and small In the frequent interval When wisdom not with me resides.* However divine the singer considers himself in comparison with ordinary humanity, he must admit that at times 1 Discrowned and timid, thoughtless, worn, A cripple of God, half-true, half-formed. See Francis Thompson, The Cloud's Swan Song. 'C. G. Roberts, Ballade of the Poet's Thought. Sonnet to Coleridge. The Poet. Emerson, The Poet. See also George Meredith, Pegasus. |