The Journal of Arthur Stirling : ("The Valley of the Shadow") Part 50

I name Sh.e.l.ley; and Sh.e.l.ley was wealthy. They kept him poor for a time, but his poems do not date from then. When he wrote the poetry that has been the spiritual food of the high souls of this century, he lived in a beautiful villa in Italy, and wandered about the forest with his books. And oh, you who love books, stop just a moment and listen: I am dying, and the cry of all my soul is in this. Tell me, you who love Sh.e.l.ley--the "pardlike spirit, beautiful and swift"--"thyself the wild west wind, oh boy divine!"--tell me how much you think you'd have had of that glorious burst of music--that golden rain of melody, of heavenly ecstasy--if the man who wrote had been a wholesale-paper clerk or a cable-car conductor! How much do you think you'd have had if when he'd torn himself free to write Queen Mab--or even if he'd been ripe enough and written his Prometheus--if he'd had to take them to publishers! If he had had to take them to the critics and the literary world and say, "Here is my work, now set me free that I may help mankind!"

--And when I wrote that I sank down and burst into tears. It can not be helped. It is very hard for me.--

Oh, but come face this thing--you that are responsible!

--"But who is responsible?" I hear a voice. Every single man is responsible--every single man who has money, who loves letters, and who faces these facts--_you_--YOU--are responsible!

Perhaps you are weary of my pleading, you think that I perish of my own weakness. But come and tell me, if you can, what it is that I have not done? What expedient is there that I have not tried, what resource, what hope? Have I not been true enough, have I not worked enough? Have I been extravagant, have I been dissipated? Did I not make my work my best? Come and reason with me--I shall be dead when you read this, but let us talk it over calmly. Put yourself here in my place and tell me what you would do.

Have I not tried the publishers, the critics, the editors, the poets, the clergymen, the professors? Have I not waited--until I am sick, crazy? Have I not borne indignities enough? Have I not gotten myself kicked enough for my efforts?

--But you say: "I know nothing about The Captive!" Yes--so it is--then let us go back to Sh.e.l.ley. A fair test would be Queen Mab or The Revolt of Islam--he was my age then; but I will go ten years later and take Prometheus Bound. Would he have found any one to publish it? _Did_ he find any one to _read_ it? Why, ten or twenty years after Sh.e.l.ley died, Browning (then a boy) records that he searched all England for a copy of that queer poet's works! Why, Sh.e.l.ley's poetry was a byword and a mockery; and Sh.e.l.ley himself--first of all he was insane, of course, and afterward he was exile, atheist, adulterer, and scoundrel. They took his children away from him, because he was not fit to take care of them!

And he would not have been welcomed with open arms, I think! And he wouldn't have been set free--consecrated soul that he was. And sensitive, nervous, fragile, hysterical boy--do you think he would ever have written his poems, that he would ever have uttered his message?

I have to make somebody understand this thing, somehow. I suggest that you think what that would have meant to you--to you who love poetry. Think that you would never have read:

Oh wild west wind, thou breath of Autumn's being!...

Oh lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud, I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed!

Think that you would never have read:

Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know!

That you would never have read:

On a poet's lips I slept!

I repeat that I have to make somebody understand this thing. I try that plan a little more. Listen to me now--think what it would have meant if that wise friend had not died when he did; think that you would never have read:

And then my heart with rapture fills, And dances with the daffodils!

Think that you would never have read:

The light that never was on sea or land, The consecration and the poet's dream!

Think that you would never have read:

Blank misgivings of a creature Moving about in world not realized; High instincts before which our moral nature Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised!

That you would never have read:

Will no one tell me what she sings?

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow For old, unhappy, far-off things And battles long ago.

I say a third time that I have to make somebody understand this thing. Let us try it again now, just once again. Let us suppose that there had not been any little independence or any pension. Who can think what it would have meant to us? Who can think what it would mean never to have read

Ring out, wild bells,

or

When the war-drum throbs no longer,

or

Crossing the bar.

Never to have read

Blow, bugle, blow!

Never to have read

My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure!

Oh, think not of what these things are to _you_--think of what they are to _men_! How many railroads would pay for them?--one, do you think? The work of how many libraries have they done, do you think? _How much money do you think could be raised in the world to-day to save them?_

_And not one cent to create them!_

--I have saved the chief thing to the last. I have spoken of the six fortunate ones who had money; I have not spoken of thee, oh my poor, poor Keats! The hours that I have hungered with thee, the hours that I have wept with thee, oh thou _my_ poet, oh thou _my_ Keats! Oh thou most wretched, most miserable of poets, oh thou most beautiful, most exquisite, most unthinkable of poets! Most inspired poet of England, since Milton died!--It was given to others to be beautiful, it was given to thee alone to be perfect! It was given to thee to be ecstasy incarnate, to be melody too sweet to hear! It was given to thee, alone of all poets, to achieve by mere _language_ a rapture that thrills the soul like the sound of an organ. And they mocked thee, they spit upon thee, they cursed thee, oh my poor, poor Keats! Thou, the hostler's son--thou, the apothecary's clerk!

Thou, sick and starved and helpless--thou, dying of disease and neglect and despair:

Oh for a draft of vintage! That hath been Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth!

Oh for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim!

"Go back to thy gallipots, Mr. Keats!" Think not of Gifford--poor fool--but think of yourself, oh world! Think what you lost in that man! You killed him, yes, you trampled him, and you throttled him! And he was only twenty-five! And he had never finished _Hyperion_--because he had not the heart!

--Come, now, all you who love books, come quickly, and let us take up a subscription, _that we may save for men the rest of Hyperion_!