"'Blessings be on them and eternal praise,
The poets, who on earth have made us heirs
Of truth and pure delight in heavenly lays.'"
* * * * *
By no means, then, to attempt a new definition where so many more competent have failed, we may nevertheless gather some points of certainty from the opinions cited above.
Poetry concerns itself with the ideal and the emotional, in nature, life, and thought. Its language must be choice, for aptness of expression and for melodious sound. Its form will embody the recurrence of rhythmic measures, which, however elaborated and varied in later times, originated in the dim past, when singing and dancing moved hand in hand for the vivid utterance of feeling—in mirthful joy and in woe, love and hate, worshipful devotion and mortal defiance, the fierceness of battle and the serenity of peace. While through all and over all must breathe the informing spirit of Beauty—whether of the delicate or the sublime, whether of sweetness or of power—harmonizing both the interior essence and its outward expression.
In the ejaculations of delight, fear, or wonder of primitive man at the phenomena of nature—in his imaginative efforts to explain the mystery of power behind light, darkness, the seasons, storm, calm—lie the beginnings of poetry; and religion grows from the same seed—the desire of the finite to lay hold on the Infinite. Every man is a potential poet, just so far as he responds to these yearnings after some expression of the ideal and the ineffable.
Poetry, indeed, finds its inspiration in all things, from the humblest creation to the Creator himself,—nothing too low or too high for its interest. In turn, it has inspired humanity's finest deeds; and so long as humanity's aims and joys and woes persist, will mankind seek uplift and delight in its charm.
[Signature: JR Howard]
PREFACE
The Poets, by the very necessity of their vocation, are the closest students of language in any literature. They are the most exacting in their demands upon the resources of words, and the most careful of discriminations in their use. "Easy writing's curst hard reading," said an English wit; but for the poet there is no such thing as easy writing. He must "wreak thought upon expression." The veteran Bryant wrote:
"Thou who wouldst wear the name
Of Poet midst thy brethren of mankind,
And clothe in words of flame
Thoughts that shall live within the general mind,
Deem not the framing of a deathless lay
The pastime of a drowsy summer day.
But gather all thy powers," etc.