It is, I say, a misnomer to dignify such by the name of poetry. The proper name is verse. Whatever is rhythmical and metrical, whether it has any of the accidents of form or not, is verse. Hence, all poetry is verse, but not all verse is poetry. Indeed, not one ten-thousandth part of verse is poetry; for the requisite of verse is simply form,—the body into which the spirit must enter ere it becomes poetry. To illustrate,—
“Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November,” etc.,
has the form of poetry without the slightest touch of the poetic spirit; thus constituting verse, simple and pure. It requires no penetration to perceive that it is not poetry, though I doubt not that nine hundred ninety-nine out of every thousand have called that stanza in the usual loose way “a verse of poetry.”
But it is not only not poetry, but it is also not a verse, though it is verse; for a verse is but one line of the poetic form, while verse is the form itself. It is not poetry because it has merely form without spirit. As well call the dead body a man (which indeed we sometimes do in the same loose way) as call such by the name of poetry.
But the body of a man without the soul is a dead man; that is, not a man at all. So also the body of one of his visible art-creations, as of poetry, without the spirit, is dead art, a dead poem;—no poem at all.
Is it not so? Only look at our thousands of dailies, weeklies, monthlies, quarterlies, and whatnotlies, where millions of these poetry-bodies lie buried, smelling too much of mortality; then turn to the time-glorified tomes of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Burns, Milton, Homer, Virgil, and their eternal co-endurers for a breath of heaven. Let this be the final answer.
Rhythm, it may be said (taking it beyond the realms of concrete poetry), is the music of Nature. It is Nature’s natural expression, if I may so speak. All her motions are rhythmical, have ripples and waves; even at rest her forms lie in the rhythmic order.
Wherever billows beat the crags, or ripples kiss the sands; wherever winds go soughing through the pines, or zephyrs toss a curl; wherever snows may drive to drifts, or wheat-fields billow green and gold; wherever drifting clouds, or dreaming skies, or bordering trees are hung dependent on the smooth lake’s waters; wherever birds may sing, or flowers bloom, or rivers run; wherever thunders wake, or hills and valleys sleep;—there is rhythm, there is music, there is Nature’s perfect harmony.