OBSCURE POETRY.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—Have you space for a quotation from Matthew Arnold's " Introduction " to the Poems of Wordsworth ? Five and twenty years ago this criticism of poetry impressell me pro- foundly. I find the words no less striking when I read them to-day :—
" Long ago, in speaking of Homer, I said that the noble and profound application of ideas to life is the most essential part of poetic greatness. I said that a great poet receives his distinctive character of superiority from his application, under the conditions immutably fixed by the laws of poetic beauty and poetic truth, from his application, I say, to his subject, whatever it may be, of the ideas. On man, on nature, and on human life,' which he has
acquired for himself Voltaire, with his signal acuteness, most truly remarked that no nation has treated in poetry moral ideas with more energy and depth than the English nation. And he adds : There, it seems to me, is the great merit of the English poets.' Voltaire does not mean by treating in poetry moral ideas' the composing moral and didactic poems ; that brings us but a very little way in poetry. He means just the same thing as was meant when I spoke above of the noble and profound application of ideas to life ' ; and he means the application of these ideas under the conditions fixed for us by the laws of poetic beauty and poetic truth 1"
The whole essay on Wordsworth has always seemed to me one of the most illuminating pieces of criticism ever given by Arnold to the world. I have tried to give the key-note to it in my choice of a quotation. Let anyone fill the lungs of his mind with the pure air of that essay, and then, still invigorated by its fine atmosphere, read carefully the "Promenade Sentimentale " or something like it. I fear that little of the heady effervescences of modern poetry would stand a test alike so sobering and so clarifying. Yet I feel honestly that the poets of this generation are, in their way, full of purpose. Only time will prove whether that purpose has sufficient vital force to emerge from its "hairy husk" and give us flowers for daily fragrance, fruits for lasting sustenance and delight.—I am, Sir, &c., BLA.Ncun WINDER.
Graythzvaite Manor, Grange-over-Sands.
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