After all, hate is merely the negative of love; simply the absence of the better emotion, a void, an ache, a pain. All attempts to gratify it only make it stronger—or rather drive the better emotion farther away—as illustrated by the cases of Pope, Dryden, Byron, and their fellows in revenge and bitterness wherever we find them. No one ever felt better or nobler or happier for gratifying a hate, for doing a bad deed, or for giving pain to a fellow-mortal’s feelings. The ever-accusing conscience, if he but listen, will never permit him to say in his heart that such gratification has given him pleasure.
If, then, it is the mission of poetry to give pleasure, no matter whether its interpretation of the Divine in the human heart be by tears or by laughter, its ministration necessarily must be to the immortal part of man.
In the light of all this, therefore, without further argument, it is clear and conclusive that all verse that is sarcastic, satiric, etc., such as that of Swift, Butler, Pope, Gay, Prior, and their hosts, is not poetry.
But what of the didactic? Whatever has the primary object of teaching delivers its treasures to the keeping of the intellect. If, therefore, verse aims primarily to teach, but ministers to the sensibilities only incidentally, it is not true poetry. Poetry does not teach nor preach nor argue nor discuss. Those are the provinces of prose. Poems and roses must not teach; they must bloom. Their breath delights us, their suggestions, their reflections of a Divinity that is above them, lifts us—God knows why! The cry of pain, the romping laugh of children at play, the pathos of death, the touch of the hand or the lips of the one we love needs no argument to fill the heart with uncontrollable emotion. These are the sweetest of the poet’s themes, and he has but to reveal them without argument as they are experienced in the heart. Argument kills them. Just in proportion to the didactic character of verse the path of poetry is departed from, and the realm of prose invaded. You cannot find a solitary purely didactic piece of verse the meaning of which could not be better expressed in prose. Not so with true poetry. That cannot be expressed in any other way.
The most illustrious types of the didactic are to be found in the “Artificial School,” at the head of which stands Pope. When we cut out the satiric and the sarcastic and all ill-feeling verse, as we see we must, and then the didactic, as we are forced by reason and logic to do, how much real poetry do we have left in this “School” so well named “Artificial”? How much is there left that makes the heart feel larger, nobler, better, and gives it new fountains of life? Only a rare gem now and then in the form of a single felicitous line or happily wedded couplet. Then, when we cut this same kind of verse out of the whole literature of the world, and also that other kind, already spoken of at length, in which there is merely spiritless poetic form as its chief element, how much real poetry and how many real poets does the world possess? Comparatively, only a few poets, the world’s great, and a few of their works—those that have already stood the test of time and that still stand the only true test of good literature, that it inspires the heart with noble feelings and lofty purposes—can be placed in the list.
But enough on the kinds of verse.
Another question concerning pleasure arising from poetry presents itself. “Violent delights have violent ends and in their triumph die.” The poetic, by its very nature, is violent. Consequently, the mind cannot long imbibe its intoxicating draughts. A little at a time is exhilarating and invigorating; but an over-dose deadens the sensibilities, and often creates a serious dislike for the poetic and a consequent unconscious restlessness of longing for the satisfaction of the higher emotions that prose can never furnish.
The mind cannot long endure extreme exertion, just as the body cannot. Poetry requires extreme exertion of the sensibilities, consequently its duration should be short that its full delight and pleasure may be enjoyed. Since this is so, every poem, by the very nature of the mind, must be brief. Who would live in a conservatory of roses where their sweet scent, most delightful at first breath, soon becomes sickening? Or who would hold even one of those odorous blooms to the nose for long? Who, on the other hand, does not delight in an occasional sip of the scent of a bursting rose-bud? And who does not find new delight at each successive draught, and regret that the petals that breathe this odor for us, alas! must fade and fall?
I believe most profoundly with Poe that, from the standpoint of the mind that produces and the mind that perceives and enjoys it, there is no such thing as a long poem. I shall go farther, and say, not only that a poem must be short, but that it must be lyrical. This gets us back to nature. Historically the first literature of every nation is poetry, and that poetry is invariably lyrical; indeed, even inevitably so. In every nation, we find it is many centuries before these lyrics of the nation are gathered up and finally strung on the thread of narrative, thus making the Epic. From the lyric, all imaginable forms have been brought forth by ingenious poets of later day. The bard of simple days lived, not close to nature’s intellect, but close to nature’s heart. Burns was the best poet of modern days, because he did the same; consequently, he is always lyrical when he is natural.
Shall we then say that the Æneid, the Odyssey, the Iliad, the Canterbury Tales, the Faery Queen, or Paradise Lost is each one poem? Viewed as I have just remarked, and that (in its relation to the mind) is the only true way to view a poem, none of these is a single poem. Each is made up of a number of poems—gems strung on the thread of a common subject;—roses in a common conservatory.