This pleasing idea has been fostered in us by poems of appeal to silent singers. [Footnote: See Swinburne, A Ballad of Appeal to Christina Rossetti; and Francis Thompson, To a Poet Breaking Silence.] But we have manifold confessions that it is not commonly thus with the non-productive poet. Not merely do we possess many requiems sung by erst-while makers over their departed gift, [Footnote: See especially Scott, Farewell to the Muse; Kirke White, Hushed is the Lyre; Landor, Dull is My Verse, and To Wordsworth; James Thomson, B. V., The Fire that Filled My Heart of Old, and The Poet and the Muse; Joaquin Miller, Vale; Andrew Lang, The Poet's Apology; Francis Thompson, The Cloud's Swan Song.] but there is much verse indicating that, even in the poet's prime, his genius is subject to a mysterious ebb and flow. [Footnote: See Burns, Second Epistle to Lapraik; Keats, To My Brother George; Winthrop Mackworth Praed, Letter from Eaton; William Cullen Bryant, The Poet; Oliver Wendell Holmes, Invita Minerva; Emerson, The Poet, Merlin; James Gates Percival, Awake My Lyre, Invocation; J. H. West, To the Muse, After Silence; Robert Louis Stevenson, The Laureate to an Academy Class Dinner; Alice Meynell, To one Poem in Silent Time; Austin Dobson, A Garden Idyl; James Stevens, A Reply; Richard Middleton, The Artist; Franklin Henry Giddings, Song; Benjamin R. C. Low, Inspiration; Robert Haven Schauffler, The Wonderful Hour; Henry A. Beers, The Thankless Muse; Karl Wilson Baker, Days.] Though he has faith that he is not "widowed of his muse," [Footnote: See Francis Thompson, The Cloud's Swan Song.] she yet torments him with all the ways of a coquette, so that he sadly assures us his mistress "is sweet to win, but bitter to keep." [Footnote: C. G. Roberts, Ballade of the Poet's Thought.] The times when she solaces him may be pitifully infrequent. Rossetti, musing over Coleridge, says that his inspired moments were
Like desert pools that show the stars
Once in long leagues.
[Footnote: Sonnet to Coleridge.]
Yet, even so, upon such moments of insight rest all the poet's claims for his superior personality. It is the potential greatness enabling him at times to have speech with the gods that makes the rest of his life sacred. Emerson is more outspoken than most poets; he is not perhaps at variance with their secret convictions, when he describes himself:
I, who cower mean and small
In the frequent interval
When wisdom not with me resides.
[Footnote: The Poet.]
However divine the singer considers himself in comparison with ordinary humanity, he must admit that at times
Discrowned and timid, thoughtless, worn,
The child of genius sits forlorn,
* * * * *
A cripple of God, half-true, half-formed.
[Footnote: Emerson, The Poet. See also George Meredith, Pegasus.]
Like Dante, we seem disposed to faint at every step in our revelation. Now a doubt crosses our minds whether the child of genius in his crippled moments is better fitted than the rest of us to point out the pathway to sacred enthusiasm. It appears that little verse describing the poet's afflatus is written when the gods are actually with him. In this field, the sower sows by night. Verse on inspiration is almost always retrospective or theoretical in character. It seems as if the intermittence of his inspiration filled the poet with a wistful curiosity as to his nature in moments of soaring. By continual introspection he is seeking the charm, so to speak, that will render his afflatus permanent. The rigidity in much of such verse surely betrays, not the white heat of genius, but a self-conscious attitude of readiness for the falling of the divine spark.
One wonders whether such preparation has been of much value in hastening the fire from heaven. Often the reader is impatient to inform the loud-voiced suppliant that Baal has gone a-hunting. Yet it is alleged that the most humble bribe has at times sufficed to capture the elusive divinity. Schiller's rotten apples are classic, and Emerson lists a number of tested expedients, from a pound of tea to a night in a strange hotel. [Footnote: See the essay on Inspiration. Hazlitt says Coleridge liked to compose walking over uneven ground or breaking through straggling branches.] This, however, is Emerson in a singularly flat-footed moment. The real poet scoffs at such suggestions. Instead, he feels that it is not for him to know the times and seasons of his powers. Indeed, it seems to him, sometimes, that pure contrariety marks the god's refusal to come when entreated. Thus we are told of the god of song,
Vainly, O burning poets!
Ye wait for his inspiration.
* * * * *
Hasten back, he will say, hasten back
To your provinces far away! There, at my own good time
Will I send my answer to you.
[Footnote: E. C. Stedman, Apollo. The Hillside Door by the same
author also expresses this idea. See also Browning, Old Pictures
in Florence, in which he speaks "of a gift God gives me now and then."
See also Longfellow, L'Envoi; Keats, On Receiving a Laurel Crown;
Cale Young Rice, New Dreams for Old; Fiona Macleod, The Founts of
Song.]
Then, at the least expected moment, the fire may fall, so that the poet is often filled with naïve wonder at his own ability. Thus Alice Meynell greets one of her poems,