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The Works of Edgar Allan Poe Raven Edition Volume 5
The Poetic Principle
page 5 of 9 | page 1 | Table of Contents
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For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavor;
And to-night I long for rest.
Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;
Who through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.
Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.
Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.
And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.
With no great range of imagination, these lines have been justly admired for their delicacy of expression. Some of the images are very effective. Nothing can be better than --
------------- the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Down the corridors of Time.
The idea of the last quatrain is also very effective. The poem on the whole, however, is chiefly to be admired for the graceful _insouciance _of its metre, so well in accordance with the character of the sentiments, and especially for the _ease _of the general manner. This "ease" or naturalness, in a literary style, it has long been the fashion to regard as ease in appearance alone--as a point of really difficult attainment. But not so:--a natural manner is difficult only to him who should never meddle with it--to the unnatural. It is but the result of writing with the understanding, or with the instinct, that _the tone, _in composition, should always be that which the mass of mankind would adopt--and must perpetually vary, of course, with the occasion. The author who, after the fashion of "The North American Review," should be upon _all _occasions merely "quiet," must necessarily upon _many _occasions be simply silly, or stupid; and has no more right to be considered "easy" or "natural" than a Cockney exquisite, or than the sleeping Beauty in the waxworks.
Among the minor poems of Bryant, none has so much impressed me as the one which he entitles "June." I quote only a portion of it: --
There, through the long, long summer hours,
The golden light should lie,
And thick young herbs and groups of flowers
Stand in their beauty by.
The oriole should build and tell
His love-tale, close beside my cell;
The idle butterfly
Should rest him there, and there be heard
The housewife-bee and humming bird.
And what, if cheerful shouts at noon,
Come, from the village sent,
Or songs of maids, beneath the moon,
With fairy laughter blent?
And what if, in the evening light,
Betrothed lovers walk in sight
Of my low monument?
I would the lovely scene around
Might know no sadder sight nor sound.
I know, I know I should not see
The season's glorious show,
Nor would its brightness shine for me;
Nor its wild music flow;
But if, around my place of sleep,
The friends I love should come to weep,
They might not haste to go.
Soft airs and song, and the light and bloom,
Should keep them lingering by my tomb.
These to their soften'd hearts should bear
The thoughts of what has been,
And speak of one who cannot share
The gladness of the scene;
Whose part in all the pomp that fills
The circuit of the summer hills,
Is -- that his grave is green;
And deeply would their hearts rejoice
To hear again his living voice.