CHAPTER III
THE LEARNING OF LYRIC POETRY
"These verses be worthy to keep a room in every man's memory: they be choicely good."
—From "The Complete Angler."
The teacher who is a workman skilled in his craft looks upon a few educational practices as being of intrinsic merit—through and through in an age of veneer and cheap imitation. Of these practices the one most fruitful under cultivation, when done with care and in moderation, is that of learning good poetry by heart. The sense of having truly learned a thing by heart, of having completely mastered it, is a most pleasant sense to have. And when the thing learned is one of the many perfect lyrics from the field of English poetry, a far-sighted judge who has lived and considered what is of most value to the individual is led to say: That is well and good. In some mysterious way this possession of a few choice poems makes for a rarer personality and gives that touch which can come only through a perfect work of art. By sheer force of intellect a man may become a cold, designing man of action and set plans on foot for the time being; but the power that is back of all great movements for civilization and culture is one that is grounded in feeling and constructive imagination. The proverbial songs of a nation are a greater force than are its laws. In one of his most entertaining essays, De Quincey points out that, when the intellect sets itself up in opposition to the feelings, one should always trust to the feelings. Normal instincts are worth more than syllogisms. The man who has attuned himself to the moods and impulses of lyric poetry is a safe man in action. Yet he is more than this; he has in him that which is the groundwork of fireside pleasures and of the joys of companionship. In other words, he is a man of cultivated imagination, and he can play in many moods.
Here it may not be amiss to mention the claim of the imagination to consideration as a faculty of the mind and inquire to what extent it should be cultivated in our schools; for if its claim be not good, there is no warrant for using any of the literature of power as subject-matter for education. Bearing on this question is the following excellent remark by the late Charles Eliot Norton, who did so very much to raise the standard of culture in American education: "The imagination is the supreme intellectual faculty, and it is of all the one that receives least attention in our common system of education. The reason is not far to seek. The imagination is of all faculties the most difficult to control, it is the most elusive of all, the rarest in its full power. But upon its healthy development depend not only the sound exercise of the faculties of observation and judgment, but also the command of the reason, the control of the will, and the growth of the moral sympathies. The means for its culture which good reading affords is the most generally available and one of the most efficient." In the same discussion Professor Norton has this to say of poetry as the highest expression of the imagination: "Poetry is one of the most efficient means of education of the moral sentiment, as well as of the intelligence. It is the source of the best culture. A man may know all science and yet remain uneducated. But let him truly possess himself of the work of any one of the great poets, and no matter what else he may fail to know, he is not without education."
To the evident truth of these quotations the humanist will readily assent; and so will the true scientist whose earnest and frank devotion to truth makes it clear to him that nothing great in his field has ever been done without a constructive imagination. The loss of artistic imagination through years of painstaking investigation will be a source of regret to any one devoted to science, as was the loss of the ability to appreciate the charm of great poetry Darwin's old age regret. The taste for this great poetry is grounded on healthful and normal instincts, and it is the part of wisdom to see that this taste be developed in youth. The boy who has nurtured his youthful imagination on the magic of great verse will waken up some morning to find himself among the competent ones of his generation. His life will be bounded by that restraint which can come only through an inability to solve the mysteries and wonders that his imagination is constantly conjuring up. He wants much that he cannot understand and reason out; and the deeper things of life, things which touch him most vitally as a living creature, he looks on with reverence. If his imagination is alive to the experiences of great poetry, he cannot scoff at things felt in the soul but impossible of explanation. To him there are sacred things in the fireside life and at the altar that are not to be laid bare by the curiosity of the reasoner in his search for truth. And when the twilight of the gods falls about him he is not curious to know, but he trusts and fears. A song is worth more to him than a proof. On this he is satisfied to throw himself.
The music of the cathedral organ that Milton could hear daily as a boy stirred his imagination, and in later years he brought forth verse that for the grandeur and scope of its imagination has never been excelled. In a minor but far more human key the songs and balladry of Scotland awakened in Burns the imagination which has made him the idol of his native land and loved wherever English poetry is known. Artistic imagination for the creation or appreciation of poetry is contagious. What is true of the poet himself is also true of the reader of great poetry; its wonderful music causes him to feel and live poems that he has not the gift to write down. It is with this feeling of poems, this appreciation of the great work of poets, that we have to do. To awaken feelings a teacher must have an imagination afire with a little verse that is choicely good, must have at least felt the pure serene a time or two. This same passion for verse, be it ever so limited, can be handed over to the boy through a judicious use of the reading voice. That is the teacher's work in hand.
What kind of verse is to be handed over to the boy, and how much is there to be of it? To the latter question the only safe answer is this: not too much. Talents and tastes vary. Every student can be made to get by rote a certain amount of verse; but as for learning it by heart, feeling and appreciating its music, that is a different thing. The greatest and most painstaking of all anthologists of English verse, Francis Turner Palgrave, claims that there ought to be more than a glimpse into the Elysian fields of song. In the best collection that has yet appeared for the teacher or student, "The Children's Treasury of English Song," Professor Palgrave has this to say in the introduction: "The treasures here collected are but a few drops from an ocean, unequalled in wealth and variety by any existing literature. But the hope is held that it may prove a pleasure and gain to the dear English and English-speaking children, all the world over,—yet the editor will hold his work but half fulfilled, unless they are tempted by it to go on and wander, in whatever direction their fancy may lead them, through the roads and winding ways of this great and glorious world of English poetry. He aims only at showing them the path, and giving them a little foretaste of our treasures.—'To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.'" That hope is to be the hope of the teacher; and it needs back of it the mastering of a few choice lyrics, after which the boy is to be sent forth to browse alone to his heart's desire.
On the question of the kind of verse to give to the boy, Professor Palgrave has made the following remark: "The standard of 'suitability to childhood' must exclude many pieces that have 'merit as poetry': pictures of life as it seems to middle age—poems coloured by sentimentalism or morbid melancholy, however attractive to readers no longer children—love as personal passion or regret (not love as the groundwork of action)—artificial or highly allusive language—have, as a rule, been held unfit. The aim has been to shun scenes and sentiments alien from the temper of average healthy childhood, and hence of greater intrinsic difficulty than poems containing unusual words." The limitations of verse for children, as stated in the remark just quoted, are reasonable and something of a guide to teachers. But they are not always easy to follow. However, nothing must be given to the child unless it has real merit as poetry, no matter how it may strike the fancy at first reading. Nor is any poem that would be otherwise good, to be excluded because it is feared the child may not completely grasp it. He may read plenty of verse that is beyond him somewhat and be all the better for having done so. The thing to be avoided is poetry that is not poetry. He may be allowed to read verse at times that would not be suitable for learning by heart. But what he learns thoroughly must be through and through great poetry. And it matters little what form it may have: ballad, song, fairy poem—he will learn to know it and to love it. Nor is it to be always within the reach of his intellect; his feelings will carry him safely beyond the narrow range of understanding.
If he would reach the boy, the teacher must find a point of contact between the home life and the altogether new life in the school. This point is without doubt the nursery rhymes. Wise indeed are parents who have taught these melodies before the school age has been reached, for the teacher can start at once with the poems he intends to have learned. But where these rhymes have not been mastered in the home, it is imperative on the part of the first-grade teacher to have them mastered in the first school year. For the teacher who hesitates about the advisability of using the Mother Goose melodies, it may be well to state their claim by a quotation from Charles Welsh in his modest but most excellent collection called "A Book of Nursery Rhymes": "The direct simplicity, dramatic imagination, and spontaneous humour of the nursery rhymes of Mother Goose will probably never be excelled by any modern verse. They will for the most part doubtless remain for all time 'the light literature of the infant scholar.' Although some fragments of what has been written since the collection was first made may go to swell the volume of this inheritance from past ages, the selection of any permanent addition will be made finally by the mother and the child. The choice will be by no means a haphazard one, for it will be founded on basal elements of human character, and it will, for the very same cause, be an absolutely autocratic choice. Experience has proved these old rhymes and jingles to be best fitted for the awakening intelligence of the child. The appeal to the imagination by evoking a sense of wonder accounts for the abiding place which these rhymes and jingles have in the literature of the nursery." The truth of these words is so evident that the teacher who would make the learning of poetry by heart a pleasure must surely recognize such rhymes as the hitching-on place between the literature of the home and that of the school.
Next in simplicity, directness, and in the interest of its appeal is verse in the ballad form. It is the easiest of all poetry to learn, for it tells a dramatic tale in a simple way. But there are few short ballads in the language suited to the grammar grades, and there is not sufficient time for learning the longer ones by heart. Many of the best old English ballads have difficulties for the child in the number of obsolete words that they contain. These two things make it difficult to use this absorbing field of poetry as subject-matter for learning by heart. It is probably best to have the boy come to know the stories of the ballads by hearing a frequent reading of them aloud by the teacher. Of the ballads selected for such reading the teacher must go to the old English field to get the greater number; but the modern field must not be neglected, for no teacher could omit that powerful yet simple work of genius, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." Its charm in holding the hearer is as great as was the charm of the old mariner's eye itself when telling the tale. If such a poem has been listened to in the elementary school, it can be taught with greater ease in the secondary school. The same thing is true of many poems.
The greater number of selections that follow these two simple and direct types, the nursery rhyme and the ballad, must be classic lyrics, fairly well suited to the boy, and it matters little whether the form be song, sonnet, ode, elegy, or that of Hebrew verse. In making these selections poems of a martial nature are not to be altogether neglected; but they must have fire, for without it a war ode is one of the most obsolete works of the human intellect. An objection may be raised to the effect that this type of poem is not suited to girls. To this objection the answer may be made, that what is good literature for a boy ought to be good literature for a girl. Will not a girl appreciate that great poem of a sea fight, "The 'Revenge'"? It seems unwise to put in a list of poems to be learned by heart an example of nonsense verse. This verse evidently has a definite place in the intellectual equipment of the child, and he may pick it up later of his own accord. No one would knowingly, however, deprive him of "The Owl and the Pussy Cat," or "The Jabberwocky"; even grown-ups dote on "Little Billee," as Thackeray doubtless did himself. We must all fool more or less—even in verse.
Some teachers will ask how poetry is to be taught. To that question the absolute answer is: through the ear. All poetry is to be read aloud and well read. The dry-as-dust fellow who wants to read it merely as prose should be indicted for a crime against art. Poetry must be read musically and with a natural time and swing. At this point it should be understood that part of the work of a teacher is to develop a good reading tone of voice. The present-day tendencies toward shrieking and a mouthing of words are most deplorable tendencies. Let the teacher first master the poem and then teach it by word of mouth, and teach it as music. It will finally impress itself on the child. Now this reading by which the poem is to be taught is to be merely a good natural reading—not the affected and exaggerated one of the elocutionist. Let the child get the idea that he must say the poem over and over until it has become his own. There is much pleasure in saying poetry aloud when one is walking by himself—a rare luxury in modern city or suburban life. It does not matter if passers-by look on this practice as a sort of lunacy, for it is a most commendable kind of lunacy to have and one that all persons are not so lucky as to possess.
So much is inviting us that no claim is made that the included list is by any means the best one hundred poems. But it is one that the experience of some years of schoolroom work has proved passing good. At least it is good enough for the teacher who has not made a thorough study of the subject. This, that, and t'other substitute might be offered; but when all is said, the selections as they stand, if well mastered, will be something of a king's treasury to the boy.
For the convenience of the teacher the selections are given complete. With but few exceptions the poems are unabridged and under the original titles. When an extract has been made from a longer poem, the first verse of the selection has generally been given as a title. All poems might be remembered by first verses rather than by titles, and every anthology should have an alphabetical index to first verses. The poems as given below will vary in their appeal largely according to the mood of the teacher and his natural temperament; but he can teach no poem well unless he has mastered it himself and has come to appreciate it. There are a few selections, however, as "The Fairy Life," "The Forsaken Merman," and "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," that are so wholly delightful that the teacher may hold them as favourite children of the imagination. Let the teacher master the selections given below, and if he so choose tear out the pages containing them and then throw the rest of the book away; for if he truly knows these poems by heart, he will no longer be a stranger to literature of power, and the purpose of this book will have been fulfilled.