Selections from Five English Poets Part 1

Selections from Five English Poets.

by Various.

INTRODUCTION

When a poem is read aloud it is easy to realize that poetry is closely related to music. Like music it awakens vague, mysterious feelings which cannot be expressed in ordinary speech; and the person who fails to catch the subtle melody of a poem gets but little from it even though he understands perfectly the meaning of the words. To ill.u.s.trate this, put into commonplace prose a pa.s.sage of beautiful verse,--for instance, lines 358-372 of _The Ancient Mariner_, beginning, "Sometimes a-dropping from the sky,"--and then compare the prose version with the original. The two will be found as unlike as the flower after it has been dissected by the botanist, and the same flower still on the stalk, opening its petals to the morning sun.

The Greeks divided all poetry into three kinds,--lyric, epic, and dramatic poetry, and there is no better general division. The lyric, which is properly a song, expresses the transient feeling or mood of the writer, and therefore is never very long. One must be sensitive to the music of verse to care for a poem of this kind, because it tells no story. Dryden's _Song for St. Cecilia's Day_ and Gray's _Elegy_, both included in the present volume, are lyrics. Among the most beautiful of English lyrics are Milton's _Lycidas_, Wordsworth's _Ode on Intimations of Immortality_, and Sh.e.l.ley's _To a Skylark_ and _Adonais_; while of American poems of the same kind none is n.o.bler than Lowell's _Commemoration Ode_. Short lyrics, among which are songs and sonnets, can be found in the works of almost every poet of note, whether English or American. Under the head of epic or narrative poetry are included long productions like the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ of Homer and the _Paradise Lost_ of Milton, and shorter poems, such as Coleridge's _Ancient Mariner_ and _Longfellow's _Evangeline_. Indeed, every piece of verse that tells a story, however short it may be, belongs with the epics or narratives. Dramatic poetry includes well-known plays like Shakespeare's _Merchant of Venice_ and _Julius Caesar_, and also certain poems not written for the stage, such as Browning's _Pippa Pa.s.ses_ and Sh.e.l.ley's _Prometheus Unbound_. In a dramatic production the poet goes out of himself for the time being, and expresses the thoughts and feelings of other characters.

It may have been noticed that in this description of the princ.i.p.al kinds of poetry, only three of the poems included in this book have been mentioned. This is because the other three--_The Traveller_, _The Deserted Village_, and _The Cotter's Sat.u.r.day Night_--do not fit exactly into any of the divisions. One would cla.s.s them with the epics rather than with the lyrics or the dramas, but they are not properly narratives, because they tell no story; they are really descriptive and reflective poems. One often comes upon a difficulty of this kind when attempting to cla.s.sify a poem, and the truth is that several smaller divisions are necessary if every production is to be placed where it belongs. But while it is desirable to know whether one is reading a lyric, an epic, or a drama, it is far more important to enjoy a beautiful poem than to be able properly to cla.s.sify it.

The following list may prove useful to those who wish to know more of the poets represented in this volume than can be learned from the short sketches of their lives which it includes:

J. R. Green: _Short History of the English People_; Stopford Brooke: _English Literature_; Frederick Ryland: _Chronological Outlines of English Literature_; Edmund Gosse: _A History of Eighteenth-Century Literature_; _Dictionary of National Biography_ (British); G.

Saintsbury: _Dryden_ (English Men of Letters Series); James Russell Lowell: essay on Dryden in _Among my Books_, vol. i; W. L. Phelps: _Gray_ (Athenaeum Press Series); Matthew Arnold: essay on Gray in _Essays in Criticism_, second series; James Russell Lowell: essay on Gray in _Latest Literary Essays_; Austin Dobson: _Life of Goldsmith_ (Great Writers Series), William Black: _Goldsmith_ (E. M. L. Series); J. C. Shairp: _Burns_ (E. M. L. Series); Thomas Carlyle: essay on Burns in _Critical and Miscellaneous Essays_, and [Burns] "The Hero as Man of Letters" in _Heroes and Hero Wors.h.i.+p_; H. D. Traill: _Coleridge_ (E. M. L. Series); T. Hall Caine: _Life of Coleridge_ (Great Writers Series); J. C. Shairp: "Coleridge as Poet and Philosopher" in _Studies in Poetry and Philosophy_; James Russell Lowell: "Address in Westminster Abbey, 7th May, 1885" [Coleridge], in _Democracy and Other Essays_; A. C. Swinburne; _Essays and Studies_; Walter Pater: "Coleridge," in _Appreciations_.

FIVE ENGLISH POETS

JOHN DRYDEN

1631-1700

Although Dryden is but little read in these days, he fills an important place in the history of English literature. As the foremost writer of the last third of the seventeenth century, he is the connecting link between Milton, "the last of the Elizabethans," and Pope, the chief poet of the age of Queen Anne. He was born in Northamptons.h.i.+re, and had the good fortune to live in the country until his thirteenth year, when he was sent to the famous Westminster School, in what is now the heart of London. A few years after finis.h.i.+ng his course at Cambridge University he went back to London, and lived there chiefly during the rest of his long and busy life. At the age of thirty-nine he was made poet-laureate and historiographer-royal, although his best work was not done until after he was fifty years old. From Milton's death, 1674, until his own in 1700, "Glorious John," as he was called, reigned without a rival in English letters; and one can picture him as a short, stout, somewhat ruddy-faced gentleman, sitting in Will's Coffee House surrounded by younger authors who vie with one another for the honor of a pinch out of his snuffbox. He died at the age of sixty-nine, and was buried in the Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, near Chaucer and Cowley.

Dryden is often called "the first of the moderns." This is because he was one of the earliest to write clear, strong English prose, and because as a poet he was thoughtful and brilliant rather than highly imaginative. Lowell says of him: "He had, beyond most, the gift of the right word. . . . In ripeness of mind and bluff heartiness of expression he takes rank with the best." Beside prose works and dramas he wrote poems of many kinds, including translations and paraphrases.

His satires are unrivaled. The finest is, perhaps, the first part of _Absalom and Achitophel_. He is now best known by two lyric poems, _Alexander's Feast_ and the _Song for St. Cecilia's Day_; while his _Palamon and Arcite_, a paraphrase of Chaucer's _Knightes Tale_, still delights the reader who cares for a good story in verse.

A SONG FOR ST. CECILIA'S DAY

1

From harmony,[1] from heavenly harmony This universal frame[2] began.

When Nature underneath a heap Of jarring atoms lay, And could not heave her head, 5 The tuneful voice was heard from high: "Arise, ye more than dead!"

Then cold and hot and moist and dry In order to their stations leap, And Music's power obey. 10 From harmony, from heavenly harmony This universal frame began; From harmony to harmony Through all the compa.s.s of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in Man.[3] 15

2

What pa.s.sion cannot Music raise and quell?

When Jubal[4] struck the corded sh.e.l.l,[5]

His list'ning brethren stood around, And, wond'ring, on their faces fell To wors.h.i.+p that celestial sound, 20 Less than a G.o.d they thought there could not dwell Within the hollow of that sh.e.l.l That spoke so sweetly and so well.

What pa.s.sion cannot Music raise and quell?

3

The trumpet's loud clangor 25 Excites us to arms, With shrill notes of anger And mortal alarms.[6]

The double double double beat Of the thundering drum 30 Cries, "Hark, the foes come!

Charge, charge, 't is too late to retreat!"

4

The soft complaining flute In dying notes discovers[7]

The woes of hopeless lovers, 35 Whose dirge is whispered by the warbling lute.

5

Sharp violins proclaim Their jealous pangs and desperation, Fury, frantic indignation, Depth of pains and height of pa.s.sion, 40 For the fair disdainful dame.

6

But oh! what art can teach, What human voice can reach The sacred organ's praise?

Notes inspiring holy love, 45 Notes that wing their heavenly ways To mend[8] the choirs above.

7

Orpheus[9] could lead the savage race, And trees unrooted left their place, Sequacious of the lyre; 50 But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher: When to her organ vocal breath was given, An angel heard, and straight[10] appeared-- Mistaking earth for heaven.

GRAND CHORUS

As from the power of sacred lays 55 The spheres began to move, And sung the great Creator's praise To all the blest above: So, when the last and dreadful hour[11]

This crumbling pageant shall devour, 60 The trumpet shall be heard on high, The dead shall live, the living die, And Music shall untune the sky.

NOTE.--Dryden wrote this song in 1687 for the festival of St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music. To be appreciated it must be read aloud, for it is full of musical effects, especially stanzas 3-6. St. Cecilia has been represented by Raphael and other artists as playing upon some instrument, surrounded by listening angels.

[1.] From harmony, etc. Some of the ancients believed that music helped in the creation of the heavenly bodies, and that their motions were accompanied by a harmony known as "the music of the spheres."

[2.] This universal frame, the visible universe.

[3.] The diapason, etc. _The diapason_ means here _the entire compa.s.s of tones_. The idea is that in man, the highest of G.o.d's creatures, are included all the virtues and powers of the lower creation.

[4.] Jubal. It is said of Jubal: "He was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ."--Genesis iv, 21.

[5.] The corded sh.e.l.l, _i.e._ the lyre. The first lyre was supposed to have been formed by drawing strings over a tortoise sh.e.l.l.

[6.] Mortal alarms, _i.e._ notes that rouse men to deadly conflict.