The Poet's Poet Part 17

Finally, the dross of its earthly embodiments being burned away by this renunciation, ideal beauty is revealed to the poet, not merely in a flash of inspiration, as at the beginning of his quest, but as an abiding presence in the soul. At least this is the ideal, but, being a poet, Sh.e.l.ley cannot claim the complete merging with the ideal that the philosopher possesses. At the supersensual consummation of his love, Sh.e.l.ley sinks back, only half conceiving of it, and cries,

Woe is me!

The winged words on which my soul would pierce Into the height of Love's rare universe Are chains of lead around its flight of fire; I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire.

CHAPTER IV

THE SPARK FROM HEAVEN

Dare we venture into the holy of holies, where the G.o.ds 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 flas.h.i.+ng eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice, 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 self-deceived 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 mult.i.tudinous 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 a.s.sures 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." [Footnote: _Song of Myself_.] 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 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, [Footnote: _On the Sublime,_ I.] and after him, Sidney, [Footnote: _Apology for Poetry._] 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 _Phaedrus_ and the _Ion_, of the artist's ecstasy touched Sh.e.l.ley 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s of us, the humblest readers of Sh.e.l.ley 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 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 Unto the fullness of their great content Like moths into the gra.s.s with folded wings.

[Footnote: _The Silence of the Poets._]

This pleasing idea has been fostered in us by poems of appeal to silent singers. [Footnote: See Swinburne, _A Ballad of Appeal to Christina Rossetti_; and Francis Thompson, _To a Poet Breaking Silence_.]

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, [Footnote: 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_.] but there is much verse indicating that, even in the poet's prime, his genius is subject to a mysterious ebb and flow. [Footnote: 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 Cla.s.s 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_.] Though he has faith that he is not "widowed of his muse," [Footnote: See Francis Thompson, _The Cloud's Swan Song_.] she yet torments him with all the ways of a coquette, so that he sadly a.s.sures us his mistress "is sweet to win, but bitter to keep." [Footnote: C. G. Roberts, _Ballade of the Poet's Thought_.] 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.

[Footnote: _Sonnet to Coleridge_.]

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 G.o.ds 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.

[Footnote: _The Poet_.]

However divine the singer considers himself in comparison with ordinary humanity, he must admit that at times

Discrowned and timid, thoughtless, worn, The child of genius sits forlorn, * * * * *

A cripple of G.o.d, half-true, half-formed.

[Footnote: Emerson, _The Poet_. See also George Meredith, _Pegasus_.]

Like Dante, we seem disposed to faint at every step in our revelation.

Now a doubt crosses our minds whether the child of genius in his crippled moments is better fitted than the rest of us to point out the pathway to sacred enthusiasm. It appears that little verse describing the poet's afflatus is written when the G.o.ds are actually with him. In this field, the sower sows by night. Verse on inspiration is almost always retrospective or theoretical in character. It seems as if the intermittence of his inspiration filled the poet with a wistful curiosity as to his nature in moments of soaring. By continual introspection he is seeking the charm, so to speak, that will render his afflatus permanent. The rigidity in much of such verse surely betrays, not the white heat of genius, but a self-conscious att.i.tude of readiness for the falling of the divine spark.

One wonders whether such preparation has been of much value in hastening the fire from heaven. Often the reader is impatient to inform the loud-voiced suppliant that Baal has gone a-hunting. Yet it is alleged that the most humble bribe has at times sufficed to capture the elusive divinity. Schiller's rotten apples are cla.s.sic, and Emerson lists a number of tested expedients, from a pound of tea to a night in a strange hotel. [Footnote: See the essay on Inspiration. Hazlitt says Coleridge liked to compose walking over uneven ground or breaking through straggling branches.] This, however, is Emerson in a singularly flat-footed moment. The real poet scoffs at such suggestions. Instead, he feels that it is not for him to know the times and seasons of his powers. Indeed, it seems to him, sometimes, that pure contrariety marks the G.o.d's refusal to come when entreated. Thus we are told of the G.o.d of song,

Vainly, O burning poets!

Ye wait for his inspiration.

Hasten back, he will say, hasten back To your provinces far away! There, at my own good time Will I send my answer to you.

[Footnote: E. C. Stedman, _Apollo_. _The Hillside Door_ by the same author also expresses this idea. See also Browning, _Old Pictures in Florence_, in which he speaks "of a gift G.o.d gives me now and then."

See also Longfellow, _L'Envoi_; Keats, _On Receiving a Laurel Crown_; Cale Young Rice, _New Dreams for Old_; Fiona Macleod, _The Founts of Song_.]

Then, at the least expected moment, the fire may fall, so that the poet is often filled with nave wonder at his own ability. Thus Alice Meynell greets one of her poems,

Who looked for thee, thou little song of mine?

This winter of a silent poet's heart Is suddenly sweet with thee, but what thou art, Mid-winter flower, I would I could divine.

But if the poet cannot predict the time of his afflatus, he indicates that he does know the att.i.tude of mind which will induce it. In certain quarters there is a truly Biblical reliance upon faith as bringer of the gift. A minor writer a.s.sures us, "Ah, if we trust, comes the song!"

[Footnote: Richard Burton, _Singing Faith_.] Emerson says,

The muses' hill by fear is guarded; A bolder foot is still rewarded.

[Footnote: _The Poet_.]

And more extreme is the counsel of Owen Meredith to the aspiring artist:

The genius on thy daily walks Shall meet, and take thee by the hand; But serve him not as who obeys; He is thy slave if thou command.

[Footnote: _The Artist_.]

The average artist is probably inclined to quarrel with this last high-handed treatment of the muse. Reverent humility rather than arrogance characterizes the most effectual appeals for inspiration. The faith of the typical poet is not the result of boldness, but of an aspiration so intense that it entails forgetfulness of self. Thus one poet accounts for his inspired hour:

Purged with high thoughts and infinite desire I entered fearless the most holy place; Received between my lips the sacred fire, The breath of inspiration on my face.

[Footnote: C. G. Roberts, _Ave_.]

Another writer stresses the efficacy of longing no less strongly; speaking of

The unsatiated, insatiable desire Which at once mocks and makes all poesy.

[Footnote: William Alexander, _The Finding of the Book_. See also Edward Dowden, _The Artist's Waiting_.]

There is nothing new in this. It is only what the poet has implied in all his confessions. Was he inspired by love? It was because thwarted love filled him with intensest longing. So with his thirst for purity, for religion, for worldly vanities. Any desire, be it fierce enough, and hindered from immediate satisfaction, may engender poetry. As Joyce Kilmer phrases it,

Nothing keeps a poet In his high singing mood, Like unappeasable hunger For unattainable food.

[Footnote: _Apology_.]

But the poet would not have us imagine that we have here sounded the depths of the mystery. Aspiration may call down inspiration, but it is not synonymous with it. Mrs. Browning is fond of pointing out this distinction. In _Aurora Leigh_ she reminds us, "Many a fervid man writes books as cold and flat as gravestones." In the same poem she indicates that desire is merely preliminary to inspiration. There are, she says,

Two states of the recipient artist-soul; One forward, personal, wanting reverence, Because aspiring only. We'll be calm, And know that when indeed our Joves come down, We all turn stiller than we have ever been.