What is Poetry?
That is not a very easy question to answer, but I will tell you, reader, where you can find some poetry. There is a little book just published by Little & Brown, Boston, and written by J. B. Lowell, which is full of pure and pleasing poetry—full of beautiful thoughts, expressed in musical words, and so artfully managed as to excite deep emotions in the heart. Here is a brief passage which describes one that died in early childhood.
As the airy gossamere,
Floating in the sunlight clear,
Where’er it toucheth, clinging tightly,
Round glossy leaf or stump unsightly,
So from his spirit wandered out
Tendrils spreading all about,
Knitting all things to its thrall
With a perfect love of all.
* * * *
He did but float a little way
Adown the stream of time,
With dreamy eyes watching the ripples play,
Or listening their fairy chime;
His slender sail
Ne’er felt the gale;
He did but float a little way,
And, putting to the shore
While yet ’twas early day,
Went calmly on his way,
To dwell with us no more!
No jarring did he feel,
No grating on his vessel’s keel;
A strip of silver sand
Mingled the waters with the land
Where he was seen no more.
* * * *
Full short his journey was; no dust
Of earth unto his sandals clave;
The weary weight that old men must,
He bore not to the grave.
He seemed a cherub who had lost his way
And wandered hither, so his stay
With us was short, and ’twas most meet
That he should be no delver in earth’s clod,
Nor need to pause and cleanse his feet
To stand before his God.