§ [11]. The discussion up to this point has attributed to poetry very definite intellectual factors that nevertheless do not constitute philosophy. Walt Whitman speaks his feeling with truth, but in general manifests no comprehensive insight. Shakespeare has not only sincerity of expression but an understanding mind. He has a knowledge not only of particular experiences, but of human nature; and a consciousness full and varied like society itself. But there is a kind of knowledge possessed by neither, the knowledge sought by coördinating all aspects of human experience, both particular and general. Not even Shakespeare is wise as one who, having seen the whole, can fundamentally interpret a part. But though the philosopher-poet may not yet be found, we cannot longer be ignorant of his nature. He will be, like all poets, one who appreciates experiences or finds things good, and he will faithfully reproduce the values which he discovers. But he must justify himself in view of the fundamental nature of the universe. The values which he apprehends must be harmonious, and so far above the plurality of goods as to transcend and unify them. The philosopher-poet will find reality as a whole to be something that accredits the order of values in his inner life. He will not only find certain things to be most worthy objects of action or contemplation, but he will see why they are worthy, because he will have construed the judgment of the universe in their favor.
In this general sense, Omar Khayyam is a philosopher-poet. To be sure his universe is quite the opposite of that which most poets conceive, and is perhaps profoundly antagonistic to the very spirit of poetry; but it is none the less true that the joys to which Omar invites us are such as his universe prescribes for human life.
"Some for the Glories of This World; and some
Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come;
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum."
Herein is both poetry and philosophy, albeit but a poor brand of each. We are invited to occupy ourselves only with spiritual cash, because the universe is spiritually insolvent. The immediately gratifying feelings are the only feelings that the world can guarantee. Omar Khayyam is a philosopher-poet, because his immediate delight in "youth's sweet-scented manuscript" is part of a consciousness that vaguely sees, though it cannot grasp, "this sorry scheme of things entire."
"Drink for you know not whence you come, nor why;
Drink for you know not why you go, nor where."
Wordsworth.
§ [12]. But the poet in his world-view ordinarily sees other than darkness. The same innate spiritual enterprise that sustains religious faith leads the poet more often to find the universe positively congenial to his ideals, and to ideals in general. He interprets human experience in the light of the spirituality of all the world. It is to Wordsworth that we of the present age are chiefly indebted for such imagery, and it will profit us to consider somewhat carefully the philosophical quality of his poetry.
Walter Pater, in introducing his appreciation of Wordsworth, writes that "an intimate consciousness of the expression of natural things, which weighs, listens, penetrates, where the earlier mind passed roughly by, is a large element in the complexion of modern poetry." We recognize at once the truth of this characterization as applied to Wordsworth. But there is something more distinguished about this poet's sensibility even than its extreme fineness and delicacy; a quality that is suggested, though not made explicit, by Shelley's allusion to Wordsworth's experience as "a sort of thought in sense." Nature possessed for him not merely enjoyable and describable characters of great variety and minuteness, but an immediately apprehended unity and meaning. It would be a great mistake to construe this meaning in sense as analogous to the crude symbolism of the educator Froebel, to whom, as he said, "the world of crystals proclaimed, in distinct and univocal terms, the laws of human life." Wordsworth did not attach ideas to sense, but regarded sense itself as a communication of truth. We readily call to mind his unique capacity for apprehending the characteristic flavor of a certain place in a certain moment of time, the individuality of a situation. Now in such moments he felt that he was receiving intelligences, none the less direct and significant for their inarticulate form. Like the boy on Windermere, whom he himself describes,
"while he hung
Loitering, a gentle shock of mild surprise
Has carried far into his heart the voice
Of mountain torrents; or the visible scene
Would enter unawares into his mind,
With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,
Its woods, and that uncertain heaven received
Into the bosom of the steady lake."
For our purpose it is essential that we should recognize in this appreciation of nature, expressed in almost every poem that Wordsworth wrote, a consciousness respecting the fundamental nature of the world. Conversation, as we know, denotes an interchange of commensurable meanings. Whatever the code may be, whether words or the most subtle form of suggestion, communication is impossible without community of nature. Hence, in believing himself to be holding converse with the so-called physical world, Wordsworth conceives that world as fundamentally like himself. He finds the most profound thing in all the world to be the universal spiritual life. In nature this life manifests itself most directly, clothed in its own proper dignity and peace. But it may be discovered in the humanity that is most close to nature, in the avocations of plain and simple people, and the unsophisticated delights of children; and, with the perspective of contemplation, even "among the multitudes of that huge city."
