There's a woman like a dew-drop, she's so purer than the purest.
It is evident from what has been said that in reading poetry it is necessary to penetrate through the letter to the spirit. I have already spoken at length in a former lecture upon the need of knowing the language of literature, and of being in sympathy with the mood of the writer. This is especially true in regard to poetry, since poetry becomes great in proportion as it deals with the spirit rather than with the letter. "We are all poets when we read a poem well," Carlyle has said. It is only by entering into the mood and by sharing the exaltation of the poet that we are able to appreciate his message. A poem is like a window of stained glass. From without one may be able to gain some general idea of its design and to guess crudely at its hues; but really to perceive its beauty, its richness of design, its sumptuousness of color, one must stand within the very sanctuary itself.
It is partly from the lack of sensitiveness of the imagination of the reading public, I believe, that in the latter half of this century the novel has grown into a prominence so marked. The great mass of readers no longer respond readily to poetry, and fiction is in a sense a simplification of the language of imagination so that it may be comprehended by those who cannot rise to the heights of verse. In this sense novels might almost be called the kindergarten of the imagination. In fiction, emotional experiences are translated into the language of ordinary intellectual life; whereas in poetry they are phrased in terms of the imagination, pure and simple. There can be no question of the superiority of the means employed by the poet. Much which is embodied in verse cannot be expressed by prose of any sort, no matter how exalted that prose may be; but for the ordinary intelligence the language of prose is far more easily comprehensible.
What I have been saying, however, may seem to be so general and theoretical that I may be held not yet fairly to have faced that issue at which I hinted in the beginning, the issue which Philistine minds raise bluntly: What is the use of poetry? Philistines are willing to concede that there is a sensuous pleasure to be gained from verse. They are able to perceive how those who care for such things may find an enervating enjoyment in the linked sweetness of cadence melting into cadence, in musical line and honeyed phrase. What they are utterly unable to understand is how thoughtful men, men alive to the practical needs and the real interests of the race, can speak of poetry as if it were a thing of genuine importance in the history and development of mankind. It would not be worth while to attempt an answer to this for the benefit of the Philistines. They are a folk who are so completely ignorant of the higher good of life that it is impossible to make them understand. Their conception of value does not reach beyond pecuniary and physical standards; they comprehend nothing which is not expressed in material terms. One who attempted to describe a symphony to a deaf man would not be more at a loss for terms than must be he who attempts to set forth the worth of art to those ignorant of real values. The question may be answered, but to those who most need to be instructed in regard to æsthetic values any answer must forever remain unintelligible.
There are, however, many sincere and earnest seekers after truth who are unable to clear up their ideas when they come in contact, as they must every day, with the assumption that poetry is but the plaything of idle men and women, a thing not only unessential but even frivolous. For them it is worth while to formulate some sort of a statement; although to do this is like making the attempt to declare why the fragrance of the rose is sweet or why the hue of its petals gives delight.
In the first place, then, the use of poetry is to nourish the imagination. I have spoken earlier of the impossibility of fulfilling the higher functions of life without this faculty. A common error regards imagination as a quality which has to do with rare and exceptional experiences; as a power of inventing whimsical and impossible thoughts; as a sort of jester to beguile idle moments of the mind. In reality imagination is to the mental being what blood is to the physical man. Upon it the intellect and the emotional consciousness alike depend for nourishment. Without it the mind is powerless to seize or to make really its own anything which lies outside of actual experience. Without it the broker could not so fully realize his cunning schemes as to manipulate the market and control the price of stocks; without it the inventor could devise no new machine, the scientist grasp no fresh secret of laws which govern the universe. It is the divine power in virtue of which man subdues the world to his uses. In a word, imagination is that faculty which distinguishes man from brute.
It is the beginning of wisdom to know; it is the culmination of wisdom to feel. The intellect accumulates; the emotion assimilates. What we learn, we possess; but what we feel, we are. The perception acquires, and the imagination realizes; and thus it is that only through the imagination can man build up and nourish that inner being which is the true and vital self. To cultivate the imagination, therefore, is an essential—nay, more; it is the one essential means of insuring the progression of the race. This is the great office of all art, but perhaps most obviously is it the noble prerogative and province of poetry. "In the imagination," wrote Coleridge, "is the distinguishing characteristic of man as a progressive being." To kindle into flame the dull embers of this god-like attribute is the first office of poetry; and were this all, it would lift the art forever above every cumbering material care and engrossing intellectual interest.
In the second place, the use of poetry is to give man knowledge of his unrecognized experiences or his unrealized capacities of feeling. The poet speaks what many have felt, but what none save he can say. He accomplishes the hitherto impossible. He makes tangible and subject the vague emotions which disquiet us as if they were elusive ghosts haunting the dwelling of the soul, unsubdued and oppressive in their mystery. The joy of a moment he has fixed for all time; the throb gone almost before it is felt he has made captive; to the evasive emotion he has given immortality. In a word, it is his office to confer upon men dominion over themselves.
Third, it is poetry which nourishes and preserves the optimism of the race. Poetry is essentially optimistic. It raises and encourages by fixing the mind upon the possibilities of life. Even when it bewails what is gone, when it weeps lost perfection, vanished joy, and crushed love, the reader receives from the poetic form, from the uplift of metrical inspiration, a sense that the possibilities of existence overwhelm individual pain. The fact that such blessings could and may exist is not only consolation when fate has wrenched them away, but the vividness with which they are recalled may almost make them seem to be relived. That