or if there is a man unknown except for one poem that still stirs you with the sentiments that you love and honor—if these, I say, have thus met your requirements, each and all of them are great poets to you, they have opened a door to a life richer in content, deeper in import, more vastly worth living.
There is no danger that the poets will ever be in need of readers. The musical expression of thought or sentiment is as old and fundamental as is human nature. The sailors singing their chants as they pull in their anchor, the negro laborers whom we have seen singing a song as they unload the railroad ties, or put the heavy rails in place, the Western range rider calming the steers, and quieting his own nerves through the lone night watches, the sagas and harvest songs of simple people in all lands, are facts that establish the part that poetry plays in the workings of the human heart. In reading poetry you will obtain no credit for upholding a tradition, as the tradition will stand of its own vitality; but in not reading it you will miss one of the most bounteous sources of inspiration, you will pass by the richest treasure house, you will neglect the supreme opportunity for a thorough life that the art of man has put within your reach. When you do read, do it for all time, not for a moment. If the muse is to give you of her best, you must feel after sharing her store as did Wordsworth when he heard the Highland Reaper singing,
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
as he tells us,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.
The poem but begins after you have read it—the experiences that come after are the ones that count. Let us remember the simile and hold the music in our hearts as a reservoir of powerful beauty that will carry us over the stupid, the heavy, the unpoetic bumps of the days' doings.
CHAPTER VII
THE CHILDREN OF PAN
For I'd rather be thy child
And pupil, in the forest wild,