POETS AND POETRY.

POETIC ARCHITECTURE.

PAnHsrs the thing that has been most often remarked about modern poetry is the fact that, except by Mr. Masefield, very few long poems have been written. There has been some dis-

cussion as to the cause of this, those who do not like modern poetry, of course, saying that it is because the present age lacks the strength for sustained inspiration. Perhaps a study of some of those long poems of the past which have not been wholly successful will give us the best notion of why the modem poet, for the most part, writes short.

Every poet, as Mr. Sturge Moore has observed, when he comes by a bit of the true gold, has to piece his treasure out with a greater or less proportion of " any material that comes handy " before he can make a poem out of it, because we do not demand that a poet should be a jeweller. We want an architect or at least a sculptor. But there is something in the very nature of poetic inspiration which makes it improbable that, unaided by a more pedestrian faculty, it should be capable of producing a whole at all. Shelley in his " Defence of Poetry " gives a very good account of the " afflatus " and its necessary successicn by a secondary faculty :—

" The mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory bright- ness ; this power arises from within, like the colour of a flower which fades and changes as it is developed, and the conscious portions of our nature are =prophetic either of its approach or its departure. Could this influence be durable in its original purity and force, it is impossible to predict the greatness of the results ; but when composition begins, inspiration is already on the decline, and the most glorious poetry that has ever been communicated to the world is probably a feeble shadow of the original conceptions of the poet . . . The toil and the delay recommended by critics can bo justly interpreted to mean no more than a careful observation of the inspired moments, and an artificial connexion of the spaces between their suggegtions, by the intertoxture of conventional expressions ; a necessity only imposed by the limitedness of the poetical faculty itself."

The modern poet must still add his bits here and there and piece out the results of his first poetic impulse with his ." inter-

texture of conventional expressions." But he adds as little as

possible and so cuts hirmtAlf off from certain aesthetic effects. Let us take, for example, a poem by the only modern writer who habitually writes at length.

The reader will remember the climax of Mr. Masefield's " The Everlasting Mercy," when the hero walks out on a fresh February morning and watches the man ploughing, hears the birds, and sees the sunrise and the first light glittering on the cobwebs and praises God. Detached from its context, this is a beautiful passage, but its effect is incomparably heightened by its being used as the climax to the realism and the frequent brutality of the earlier part of the poem.

Another effect, as it were, of the mere length of a poem is that the reader gets into its atmosphere. The poet dare attempt to be more strange or subtle in a long poem. This effect becomes pretty obvious if we try reading such a poem as " Endymion " through and then dipping into it and taking selected passages. In reading solidly through it we cannot help being caught in the glamour of that whole magic world; our mood is a pale shadow of Keats' when he wrote it. In this life of enchantment the weaknesses of the poem are forgotten; our spirit is melted by its soft beauties ; we no longer want to blame, hardly to criticise, hardly to think which are the passages of greatest merit. But open the poem here and there and you will find yourself turning on to some of the more splendid pas- sages—the description of Adonis' bower, where a Cupid kneels playing a harp, " Muting to death the pathos with his wings," or the description of Circe and the " haggard scene " when she taunts and torments her train of beasts and the poor elephant pleads vainly for release from the gross flesh in which she has imprisoned him.

Take, again, another kind of atmosphere, the effects that Mr. Masefield gets in " Dauber "—the fatigue and weariness of the terrible weeks off Cape Horn, the pitiless iteration of the storm, the wretchedness, exhaustion, and peril. All this could not possibly have been brought before us in a few lines. The work is done cumulatively, the effects are elaborately led up to, our minds are prepared for the restless desolation, the strain and agony of this prolonged physical wretchedness.

If Latin or Japanese conciseness could .not possibly give us these effects, obviously on the other hand certain notions gain tremendously by shortness and simplicity of statement. Take the following one Of Mr. Waley's incomparable Translations from the Chinese." The effects which the poet, Po Chu-I, is aiming at here appear to me to be first that which painters often try to get in rendering an interior, a feeling of being shut in, of enclosure, of intimacy. With this is connected the psychologi- cal introversion caused by illness ; the sick man by reason of the illness is necessarily concerned with his own body, and this inevitably leads him to the consideration of his own mind. Then this notion of physical and spiritual " shut-in-ness " is to be shown giving way to a larger vision, but the reader is to keep the tranquillity of the sick philosopher, with his conviction that " The world is too much with us." The poem is called " Sick Leave " :— " Propped on pillows, not attending to business ; For two days I've lain behind locked doors.

I begin to think that those who hold office Get no rest, except by falling ill !

For restful thoughts one does not need space ; The room where I lie is ten foot square.

By the western eaves, above the bamboo twigs,

From my couch I see the White Mountain rise,

But the clouds that hover on its far-distant peak Bring shame to a face that is buried in the World's dust."

The shortness of the poem exactly suits the nature of the ideas which the poet intends to convey. An extra line or two, further descriptions of sensations, room or landscape would have weakened the sharpness of the impression.

Japanese poems are shorter still. The " tanks," a poem of five lines, is the form in which almost all Japanese poetry is written, and for centuries the poetic inspiration of this language has been confined to a plot of ground far narrower than that of the sonnet. Here is an example, again from Mr. Waley's translations :— " 0 cuckoo, Because the villages where you sing Are so many,

I am estranged from you, even

In the midst of my love ! "

Of this poem the'commentator says : " He speaks in a parable to a girl that had many hearts." This brings us to the considera-

tion of some of the qualities to which shortness will give value. Only in a short poem could the anonymous writer's little frail " touch and go " allegory have been stated just so, and only by an audience who realise the double entendre that is intended can the five lines be properly enjoyed. It is nearly always a small, close, highly civilised literary society that produces such poems,—(1 bon entendeur demi-mot. Such a poem is the half word addressed to the right hearer. It relics upon allusions and upon a double meaning which must not be pressed too far. By these means it can be more elusive, more subtle, and can almost always convey more than the plain statement.

Japanese and Chinese poetry and the poems of the Greek Anthology have all of them something of the quality of attar of roses ; the poet's thought and intention has been distilled down. This effect ought always to be aimed at in a short poem. The smallness of the poem should make us conscious of an immense work of selection and self-denial—the poet had a great deal to say, but not choosing to leave his reader with a blurred image, chose only this, the very essential oil of his thought. But being poetry, and therefore unlike a direct statement in " two words," this potent drop spreads by implication its aroma—bitter or sweet—over a wide tract.

A. Wrr.triows-ELLts.