Part 1 — SECOND STUDY
Reading edition
TO ESTABLISH INTELLIGENCE IN FEELING
Art is in bondage in this country: its internal polity to the temperamental ideal; its external polity to the commercial ideal. Business and social life are in the same bondage. In music, in drama, in letters, in society, and in trade we permit personality to exploit itself for commercial purposes. The result is either chaotic or calculated expression on every side. When temperament seeks restraint in technique, and policy, whether business or social, seeks freedom in service, then shall we have that balanced expression in art, in society, and in trade which should proceed from the American personality and distinguish American life.
It may seem a far cry from a comment upon American life to the subject of this second study—intelligence in feeling. Carry the idea of balanced expression from the introduction to the body of this exposition and the transition is not difficult to make.
"Wonderful technique, but no heart in her singing!" "Tremendous temperament, but no technique!" "She moves me profoundly, but oh, what a method!" "Her instrument is flawless, but she leaves me absolutely unmoved." Have you ever heard such comment, or made such comment, or been the subject of like comment? Diagnosis of the case, whether it be yours or another's, should be the same—lack of poise in expression, producing the undesirable effect upon the auditor of no emotion at all, or of unintelligent emotion. To determine just what we mean by intelligent emotion is our first problem for this study.
An experience I had in visiting a class in interpretation in a well-known school of oratory some years ago will illustrate the point. The selection for interpretation was the prelude to the first part of The Vision of Sir Launfal.
"And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays; ..."
The work was well under way when I entered the class-room. My entrance did not disturb the expression on the face of the student who was "up before" the class. A Malvolio smile was never more deliciously indelible. I thought at first my request to see some work in interpretation had been mistaken and I had been ushered into a class in facial gymnastics. Then I concluded that Mr. Lowell's poem was being employed as text for an exercise in smiling. Finally the awful truth came upon me that this teacher of interpretation was seriously attempting to secure from her pupils an expression which should suggest the spirit of the June day by asking them to assume the outward sign of joy known as smiling. The result was a ghastly series of facial contortions, which left at least one auditor's day as bleak as the bleakest December. No intelligent feeling can be induced in interpreter or auditor by assuming the outward sign of an inward emotion. Some of you are recalling Mr. James's talk to students, on the reflex theory of emotion, and are being confused at this point. Let us stop and straighten out the confusion. Mr. James says:
"Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.
"Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our spontaneous cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully, to look round cheerfully, and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there. If such conduct does not make you soon feel cheerful, nothing else on that occasion can. So to feel brave, act as if we were brave, use all our will to that end, and a courage-fit will very likely replace the fit of fear."
The application of this principle to the reading of these lines would seem to justify the method the teacher was pursuing. A smile is acceptedly the indication of happy emotion, the outward symbol of inward rejoicing or joy. The June day is full of joyful emotion,—the joy of awakening life. Applying Mr. James's theory, a legitimate way to induce the inward emotion would seem to be to assume the outward sign. But wait a moment. Let us look to our premises. Mr. Lanier, who sings of Nature with joyful understanding, cries in Sunrise:
"Tell me, sweet burly-bark'd, man-bodied Tree That mine arms in the dark are embracing, dost know From what fount are these tears at thy feet which flow? They rise not from reason, but deeper inconsequent deeps. Reason's not one that weeps. What logic of greeting lies Betwixt dear over-beautiful trees and the rain of the eyes?"
Here is a great master of verbal expression whose inward joy finds its outward symbol not in a smile but in a tear. So you and I may respond to Mr. Lowell's "high tide of the year" with smiles or with tears, with bowed head and closed eyes, or with eyes wide and head raised to meet the returning flood of life.
The effect upon me of the beauty of this day as Mr. Lowell has painted it, my personal emotional response is interesting psychology, but is not my concern as an interpreter. My own emotion and its personal response belong to my preparatory interpretative efforts in the study; but when the interpretation is ready for the audience-room, the emotion must be assimilated into the interpretative act and appear only as part of the illumination of the bit of life I am presenting.
The object of all great art, whether creative or interpretative, is not to exploit the personality of the artist, but to disclose at some point the personality of the very God himself, which is life. The revelation not of personal emotion but of universal life is the legitimate aim of all artistic effort.
Emotional response will accompany every vital mental conception. Abandonment to that response is a legitimate and necessary part of full comprehension. But such abandonment, as I have said, belongs to our preparation for expression. Such abandonment must not be taken out of the study on to the stage. No temperamental expression along any line is fit for the public until it is controlled by technique, the technique which has been worked out by the masters of every art, not excluding the art of living.
It is not the effect of June upon you I want from your interpretation, it is the spirit of June itself. You must let me have my own emotion. Your emotional response was the result of your mental concept; mine, to be intelligent, must find the same impulse. If you impose your own emotion upon me mine will be merely an unintelligent reflection of yours. Taking as our ideal of the interpreter, the absolutely pure medium, bars out every manifestation which calls attention to the interpreter, and so interferes with the direct message.
"The natural form of expression which literature takes when it passes beyond the normal powers of prose, is lyric poetry. When your feelings rise beyond a certain degree of stress you need the stronger beat and vibration of verse; to express the highest joy or the deepest grief poetry is your natural instrument." Again corroborated in our choice of direction in study by Mr. Gardiner, let us turn for "material" in the establishment of intelligence in emotion, to the most intensive type of the literature of feeling,—lyric poetry.
"Every now and then a man will come who will reduce to words—as Mr. Ruskin has done—some impression of vivid pleasure which has never been reduced to words before. It is only the great master who makes these advances; by studying his works you may perhaps come somewhere near the mark that he has set." This further word from the same paragraph should influence us to pause with Mr. Ruskin's poetry in prose form for a brief study on our way to the lyrics of Wordsworth and Shelley and Keats, a song from Shakespeare, and some few from the rare, more modern lyricists. I shall trust you to this by-path under the guidance of The Forms of Prose Literature, where you will find passages from such masters of prose as Mr. Ruskin and Mr. Stevenson—passages of surpassing lyric beauty which shall furnish models for your correlated study in Description.
SUGGESTIVE ANALYSIS
I have chosen for suggestive analysis of the lyric, Shelley's ode To a Skylark. I shall analyze in detail only the first five stanzas:
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from heaven, or near it Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest, Like a cloud of fire The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun O'er which clouds are brightening, Thou dost float and run, Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven In the broad daylight Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear, Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.
How shall we create an atmosphere for the reading of these verses! How can we catch the spirit of the creator of them! Shall we ever feel ready to voice that first line? Do you know Jules Breton's picture The Lark? Do you love it? Go, then, and stand before it, actually or in imagination. Let something of the spirit which informs that lovely child, lifting her eyes, her head in an attitude of listening rapture, steal over you. I know her power. I have tested it. In reading the "Skylark" with a class of boys and girls from twelve to fourteen years old, I tried the experiment. I happened to have with me a beautiful copy of Breton's picture. I took it to the class-room. I wrote on the blackboard verses of the poem and hung the picture over them. The picture taught them to read the poem. The eyes of the girl became their teacher. I tried the experiment, with a private pupil in my studio, with a somewhat different result. I had told her to bring a copy of Shelley's poems to her next lesson. "Do you know the ode To a Skylark?" I asked. "Yes," she said. A copy of Breton's picture hung on the wall. "Before you open your book look at the picture," I said. She obeyed. Her expression, always radiant, deepened its radiance. "Do you know what the girl is doing?" I asked. "Oh yes, she is listening to the skylark." "How do you know?" "I have heard the skylark sing." "I never have," I said. "Read the poem to me." Now when I read the "Skylark," I see the girl in Jules Breton's picture, but I hear the voice of my English pupil.
But if our apperceptive background fails to furnish a memory of the identical sight and sound for our inspiring, it at least holds bird notes and bird flights of great beauty, and we must call upon these for the impulse to voice Shelley's apostrophe:
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from heaven, or near it Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
An early autumn number of the Atlantic Monthly for 1907 published a poem by Mr. Ridgley Torrence, entitled The Lesser Children, or A Threnody at the Hunting Season. The poem is worthy, in sentiment and structure, to be set beside Shelley's ode. Let us compare with the picture which the eighteenth-century poet has given us this one from our modern song-writer:
Who has not seen in the high gulf of light What, lower, was a bird, but now Is moored and altered quite Into an island of unshaded joy? To whom the mate below upon the bough Shouts once and brings him from his high employ. Yet speeding he forgot not of the cloud Where he from glory sprang and burned aloud, But took a little of the day, A little of the colored sky, And of the joy that would not stay He wove a song that cannot die.
Now let us study closely the first verse of the older poem. Spirit and voice must soar in the first line, "Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!" The two words "hail" and "blithe" are swift-winged words. Let them fly. Give them their wings. Let them do all they are intended to do. The rhythm of the whole poem is aspiring. Reverence the rhythm, but keep the thought floating clear above it in the second line, "Bird thou never wert." With the next two lines the tone must gather head to be poured forth in the last line, "In profuse strains of unpremeditated art." Let us make another comparative study. Set on the other side of this picture Lowell's description of the "little bird" in his prologue to Sir Launfal's vision:
The little bird sits at his door in the sun, Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, And lets his illumined being o'errun With the deluge of summer it receives.
The second verse of the "Skylark" demands a still higher flight of imagination and tone. Let us try it.
Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest, Like a cloud of fire The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
Again all the words rise and float. Sing them over: higher, higher, springest, fire, wingest, singing, soar, soaring, singest. The reader must feel himself poised for flight in every word of the first three verses. Why does the poet say cloud of fire? What is the color of the skylark? And now the tone, which has been of a radiant hue through these three verses, must soften a little in the first three lines of the next verse—
The pale purple even Melts around thy flight;—
glow gold again in the last three lines—
Like a star of heaven In the broad daylight Thou art unseen, and yet I hear thy shrill delight—
and become the white of an incandescent light in the next verse—
Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear, Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.
Do you not see that the secret of its beauty lies, for vocal interpretation, in the color of tone and in the inflection of the words? Say "unseen," dwelling on the second syllable; "shrill delight," directing shrill over the head of delight; "keen," making it cleave the air like an arrow; "silver sphere," suggesting a moonlit path across water; "intense" and "narrows," letting the tone recede into the "white dawn"; "see," with a vanishing stress; and "feel," with a deepening note carried to the end. So we might go on through the twenty-one stanzas which make up the poem.
Please analyze undirected the next two verses.
All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow'd. What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.
In reading the first lines of the next four verses we must avoid monotony.
Like a poet hidden In the light of thought, Singing hymns unbidden, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not: Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, Soothing her love-laden Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower: Like a glowworm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aerial hue Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view: Like a rose embower'd In its own green leaves, By warm winds deflower'd, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves.
Vary, if only for variety, the pitch on which you begin each of these first lines. Let the first three words of the eighth verse, "like a poet," ascend in pitch. Keep the voice level in the first line of the ninth verse, "like a high-born maiden." Let the pitch fall in the first words of the tenth stanza, "like a glowworm golden." And again keep the tone level on the first line of the next stanza, "like a rose embower'd." I leave to you the analysis of the rest of the poem:
Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, Rain-awaken'd flowers, All that ever was Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass. Teach us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine: I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. Chorus hymeneal Or triumphal chaunt Match'd with thine, would be all But an empty vaunt— A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What field, or waves, or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? With thy clear, keen joyance Languor cannot be: Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee: Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. Waking or asleep Thou of death must deem Things more true and deep Than we mortals dream, Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. Yet if we could scorn Hate and pride and fear; If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. Better than all measures Of delightful sound, Better than all treasures That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now! —Shelley.
SELECTIONS FOR INTERPRETATION
The following selections from lyric poetry are designed to give the voice exercise in the expression of varied emotions.
I
THE DAFFODILS I wander'd lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretch'd in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced, but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:— A Poet could not but be gay In such a jocund company! I gazed—and gazed—but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought; For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils. —Wordsworth.
II
BY THE SEA It is a beauteous evening, calm and free; The holy time is quiet as a Nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquillity; The gentleness of heaven is on the Sea: Listen! the mighty Being is awake, And doth with his eternal motion make A sound like thunder—everlastingly. Dear child! dear girl! that walkest with me here, If thou appear untouch'd by solemn thought Thy nature is not therefore less divine: Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year, And worship'st at the Temple's inner shrine, God being with thee when we know it not. —Wordsworth.
III
TO THE CUCKOO O blithe new-comer! I have heard, I hear thee and rejoice: O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird, Or but a wandering Voice? While I am lying on the grass Thy twofold shout I hear; From hill to hill it seems to pass, At once far off and near. Though babbling only to the vale Of sunshine and of flowers, Thou bringest unto me a tale Of visionary hours. Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring! Even yet thou art to me No bird, but an invisible thing, A voice, a mystery; The same whom in my school-boy days I listen'd to; that Cry Which made me look a thousand ways In bush, and tree, and sky. To seek thee did I often rove Through woods and on the green; And thou wert still a hope, a love, Still long'd for, never seen! And I can listen to thee yet, Can lie upon the plain And listen, till I do beget That golden time again. O blesséd Bird! the earth we pace Again appears to be An unsubstantial, faery place, That is fit home for Thee! —Wordsworth.
IV
ODE TO THE WEST WIND O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes! O thou Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The wingéd seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odours plain and hill: Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and Preserver; Hear, oh hear! Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean, Angels of rain and lightning! there are spread On the blue surface of thine airy surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head Of some fierce Maenad, ev'n from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith's height— The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: Oh hear! Thou who didst waken from his summer-dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams, Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers Quivering within the wave's intenser day, All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou For whose path the Atlantic's level powers Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, know Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear And tremble and despoil themselves: Oh hear! If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share The impulse of thy strength, only less free Than Thou, O uncontrollable! If even I were as in my boyhood, and could be The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed Scarce seem'd a vision,—I would ne'er have striven As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd One too like thee—tameless, and swift, and proud. Make me thy lyre, ev'n as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! be thou me, impetuous one! Drive my dead thoughts over the universe, Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth; And, by the incantation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? —Shelley.
V
TO THE NIGHT Swiftly walk over the western wave, Spirit of night! Out of the misty eastern cave Where, all the long and lone daylight, Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear Which make thee terrible and dear,— Swift be thy flight! Wrap thy form in a mantle gray Star-inwrought; Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day, Kiss her until she be wearied out: Then wander o'er sea and city and land, Touching all with thine opiate wand— Come, long-sought! When I arose and saw the dawn, I sigh'd for thee: When light rode high, and the dew was gone, And noon lay heavy on flower and tree, And the weary Day turn'd to his rest Lingering like an unloved guest, I sigh'd for thee. Thy brother Death came, and cried Wouldst thou me? Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed, Murmur'd like a noon-tide bee Shall I nestle near thy side? Wouldst thou me?—And I replied No, not thee! Death will come when thou art dead, Soon, too soon— Sleep will come when thou art fled; Of neither would I ask the boon I ask of thee, beloved Night— Swift be thine approaching flight, Come soon, soon! —Shelley.
VI
ODE TO A GRECIAN URN Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempé or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! Ah happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unweariéd, For ever piping songs for ever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love! For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, For ever panting, and for ever young; All breathing human passion far above, That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? What little town by river or sea shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? And, little town, thy streets for evermore Will silent be; and not a soul to tell Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,"—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. —Keats.
VII
It was a lover and his lass With a hey and a ho, and a hey nonino! That o'er the green corn-field did pass In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing hey ding a ding: Sweet lovers love the Spring. Between the acres of the rye These pretty country folks would lie: This carol they began that hour, How that life was but a flower: And therefore take the present time With a hey and a ho and a hey nonino! For love is crownéd with the prime In spring time, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing hey ding a ding: Sweet lovers love the Spring. —Shakespeare.
VIII
Pack, clouds, away, and welcome day, With night we banish sorrow; Sweet air blow soft, mount larks aloft To give my Love good-morrow! Wings from the wind to please her mind Notes from the lark I'll borrow; Bird, prune thy wing, nightingale sing, To give my Love good-morrow; To give my Love good-morrow Notes from them both I'll borrow. Wake from thy nest, Robin-red-breast, Sing, birds, in every furrow; And from each hill, let music shrill Give my fair Love good-morrow! Blackbird and thrush in every bush, Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow! You pretty elves, amongst yourselves Sing my fair Love good-morrow; To give my Love good-morrow Sing, birds, in every furrow! —Heywood.
IX
THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE Come live with me and be my Love, And we will all the pleasures prove That hills and valleys, dale and field, And all the craggy mountains yield. There will we sit upon the rocks And see the shepherds feed their flocks, By shallow rivers, to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals. There will I make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant posies, A cap of flowers, and a kirtle Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle. A gown made of the finest wool, Which from our pretty lambs we pull, Fair linéd slippers for the cold, With buckles of the purest gold. A belt of straw and ivy buds With coral clasps and amber studs: And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me and be my Love. Thy silver dishes for thy meat As precious as the gods do eat, Shall on an ivory table be Prepared each day for thee and me. The shepherd swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each May-morning: If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me and be my Love. —Marlowe.
X
HUNTING SONG Waken, lords and ladies gay, On the mountain dawns the day; All the jolly chase is here With hawk and horse and hunting-spear; Hounds are in their couples yelling, Hawks are whistling, horns are knelling, Merrily, merrily mingle they, "Waken, lords and ladies gay." Waken, lords and ladies gay, The mist has left the mountain gray, Springlets in the dawn are steaming, Diamonds on the brake are gleaming; And foresters have busy been To track the buck in thicket green; Now we come to chant our lay "Waken, lords and ladies gay." Waken, lords and ladies gay, To the greenwood haste away; We can show you where he lies, Fleet of foot and tall of size; We can show the marks he made When 'gainst the oak his antlers fray'd; You shall see him brought to bay; "Waken, lords and ladies gay." Louder, louder chant the lay Waken, lords and ladies gay! Tell them youth and mirth and glee Run a course as well as we; Time, stern huntsman! who can baulk, Stanch as hound and fleet as hawk; Think of this, and rise with day, Gentle lords and ladies gay! —Scott.
XI
Besides the rivers Arve and Arveiron, which have their sources in the foot of Mont Blanc, five conspicuous torrents rush down its sides; and within a few paces of the Glaciers, the Gentiana Major grows in immense numbers, with its "flowers of loveliest blue."
HYMNBEFORE SUNRISE, IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI Hast thou a charm to stay the morning-star In his steep course? So long he seems to pause On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc! The Arve and Arveiron at thy base Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form! Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines, How silently! Around thee and above Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black, An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it, As with a wedge! But when I look again, It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, Thy habitation from eternity! O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee, Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer I worshiped the Invisible alone. Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody, So sweet, we know not we are listening to it, Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought, Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy: Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfused, Into the mighty vision passing—there As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven! Awake, my Soul! not only passive praise Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears, Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake, Voice of sweet song! Awake, my Heart, awake! Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my Hymn. Thou first and chief, sole sovran of the Vale! O struggling with the darkness all the night, And visited all night by troops of stars, Or when they climb the sky or when they sink; Companion of the morning-star at dawn, Thyself Earth's rosy star, and of the dawn Co-herald: wake, O wake, and utter praise! Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in Earth? Who filled thy countenance with rosy light? Who made thee parent of perpetual streams? And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad! Who called you forth from night and utter death, From dark and icy caverns called you forth, Down those precipitous, black, jagged Rocks, Forever shattered and the same forever? Who gave you your invulnerable life, Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, Unceasing thunder and eternal foam? And who commanded (and the silence came), Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest? Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow Adown enormous ravines slope amain— Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge! Motionless torrents! silent cataracts! Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the Sun Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?— God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God! God! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice! Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God! Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost! Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest! Ye eagles, play-mates of the mountain-storm! Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds! Ye signs and wonders of the element! Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise! Thou too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks, Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast— Thou too again—stupendous Mountain! thou That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low In adoration, upward from thy base Slow traveling with dim eyes suffused with tears, Solemnly seemest like a vapory cloud, To rise before me—Rise, O ever rise, Rise like a cloud of incense, from the Earth! Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills, Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven, Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky, And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God. —Coleridge.
XII
JAUN'S SONG FROM THE SPANISH GYPSY Memory, Tell to me What is fair Past compare In the land of Tubal? Is it Spring's Lovely things, Blossoms white, Rosy dight? Then it is Pepita. Summer's crest Red-gold tressed, Corn-flowers peeping under? Idle noons, Lingering moons, Sudden cloud, Lightning's shroud, Sudden rain, Quick again Smiles where late was thunder? Are all these Made to please? So too is Pepita. Autumn's prime, Apple-time, Smooth cheek round, Heart all sound?— Is it this You would kiss? Then it is Pepita. You can bring No sweet thing, But my mind Still shall find It is my Pepita. Memory Says to me It is she— She is fair Past compare In the land of Tubal.
XIII
PABLO'S SONG FROM THE SPANISH GYPSY Spring comes hither, Buds the rose; Roses wither, Sweet spring goes. Ojala, would she carry me! Summer soars— Wide-winged day, White light pours, Flies away. Ojala, would he carry me! Soft winds blow, Westward born, Onward go Toward the morn. Ojala, would they carry me! Sweet birds sing O'er the graves, Then take wing O'er the waves. Ojala, would they carry me! —George Eliot.
XIV
MEMORY[5] My mind lets go a thousand things, Like dates of wars and deaths of kings, And yet recalls the very hour— 'Twas noon by yonder village tower, And on the last blue noon in May— The wind came briskly up this way, Crisping the brook beside the road; Then, pausing here, set down its load Of pine-scents, and shook listlessly Two petals from that wild-rose-tree.
XV
ENAMOURED ARCHITECT OF AIRY RHYME Enamoured architect of airy rhyme, Build as thou wilt; heed not what each man says: Good souls, but innocent of dreamer's ways, Will come, and marvel why thou wastest time; Others, beholding how thy turrets climb 'Twixt theirs and heaven, will hate thee all thy days; But most beware of those who come to praise. O Wondersmith, O Worker in sublime And Heaven-sent dreams, let art be all in all; Build as thou wilt, unspoiled by praise or blame, Build as thou wilt, and as thy light is given: Then, if at last the airy structure fall, Dissolve, and vanish—take thyself no shame. They fail, and they alone, who have not striven. —Thomas Bailey Aldrich.
XVI
LOVE IN THE WINDS[6] When I am standing on a mountain crest, Or hold the tiller in the dashing spray, My love of you leaps foaming in my breast, Shouts with the winds and sweeps to their foray; My heart bounds with the horses of the sea, And plunges in the wild ride of the night Flaunts in the teeth of tempest the large glee That rides out Fate and welcomes gods to fight. Ho, love, I laugh aloud for love of you, Glad that our love is fellow to rough weather,— No fretful orchid hot-housed from the dew, But hale and hardy as the highland heather, Rejoicing in the wind that stings and thrills, Comrades of ocean, playmate of the hills. —Richard Hovey.
XVII
CANDLEMAS[7] O hearken, all ye little weeds That lie beneath the snow, (So low, dear hearts, in poverty so low!) The sun hath risen for royal deeds, A valiant wind the vanguard leads; Now quicken ye, lest unborn seeds Before ye rise and blow. O furry living things, adream On Winter's drowsy breast, (How rest ye there, how softly, safely rest!) Arise and follow where a gleam Of wizard gold unbinds the stream, And all the woodland windings seem With sweet expectance blest. My birds, come back! the hollow sky Is weary for your note. (Sweet-throat, come back! O liquid, mellow throat!) Ere May's soft minions hereward fly, Shame on ye, laggards, to deny The brooding breast, the sun-bright eye, The tawny, shining coat! —Alice Brown.
Mr. Gilbert Chesterton tells us that the real Robert Browning of literary history arrived with the Dramatic Lyrics. "In Dramatic Lyrics," says Mr. Chesterton, "Browning discovered the one thing that he could really do better than any one else—the dramatic lyric. The form is absolutely original; he had discovered a new field of poetry, and in the center of that field he had found himself." The form is new, but it obeys the fundamental law of lyric poetry, and so in our study belongs to this chapter. The new element which the word "dramatic" suggests makes a new and a somewhat broader demand upon the interpreter; therefore I have chosen this group of Dramatic Lyrics from Browning as the material for your final study of this form:
MY STAR All that I know Of a certain star Is, it can throw (Like the angled spar) Now a dart of red, Now a dart of blue; Till my friends have said They would fain see, too, My star that dartles the red and the blue! Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled: They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it. What matter to me if their star is a world? Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.
CAVALIER TUNES MARCHING ALONG Kentish Sir Byng stood for his King, Bidding the crop-headed Parliament swing. And, pressing a troop unable to stoop And see the rogues flourish and honest folk droop, Marched them along, fifty-score strong, Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song. God for King Charles! Pym and such carles To the Devil that prompts 'em their treasonous parles! Cavaliers, up! Lips from the cup, Hands from the pasty, nor bite take nor sup Till you're— (Chorus) Marching along, fifty-score strong, Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song. Hampden to hell, and his obsequies' knell Serve Hazelrig, Fiennes, and young Harry as well! England, good cheer! Rupert is near! Kentish and loyalists, keep we not here, (Chorus) Marching along, fifty-score strong, Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song? Then, God for King Charles! Pym and his snarls To the Devil that pricks on such pestilent carles! Hold by the right, you double your might; So, onward to Nottingham, fresh for the fight. (Chorus) March we along, fifty-score strong, Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song!
GARDEN FANCIESTHE FLOWER'S NAME Here's the garden she walked across, Arm in my arm, such a short while since. Hark, now I push its wicket, the moss Hinders the hinges and makes them wince! She must have reached this shrub ere she turned, As back with that murmur the wicket swung; For she laid the poor snail, my chance foot spurned, To feed and forget it the leaves among. Down this side of the gravel walk She went while her robe's edge brushed the box: And here she paused in her gracious talk To point me a moth on the milk-white phlox. Roses, ranged in valiant row, I will never think that she passed you by! She loves you, noble roses, I know; But yonder, see, where the rock-plants lie! This flower she stopped at, finger on lip, Stooped over, in doubt, as settling its claim; Till she gave me, with pride to make no slip, Its soft meandering Spanish name. What a name! Was it love or praise? Speech half-asleep or song half-awake? I must learn Spanish, one of these days, Only for that slow sweet name's sake. Roses, if I live and do well, I may bring her, one of these days, To fix you fast with as fine a spell, Fit you each with his Spanish phrase; But do not detain me now; for she lingers There, like sunshine over the ground, And ever I see her soft white fingers Searching after the bud she found. Flower, you Spaniard, look that you grow not, Stay as you are and be loved forever! Bud, if I kiss you 'tis that you blow not: Mind, the shut pink mouth opens never! For while it pouts, her fingers wrestle, Twinkling the audacious leaves between, Till round they turn and down they nestle— Is not the dear mark still to be seen? Where I find her not, beauties vanish; Whither I follow her, beauties flee; Is there no method to tell her in Spanish June's twice June since she breathed it with me? Come, bud, show me the least of her traces, Treasure my lady's lightest footfall! —Ah, you may flout and turn up your faces— Roses, you are not so fair after all! —Browning.
That "the poet is born, not made," is more and more an undisputed fact in every literary age. But many a birthright of poetic power has been saved from sale for a mess of pottage by a wisely ordered meeting of the young bard, while his gift was still latent, with the masters of lyric expression.
Such an introduction is the object of this study, so far as it can embrace in its aim the ends of both forms of expression,—interpretation and composition. There is no thought of inducing even an aspirant to the poetical purple, much less a Shelley or a Keats or an Alice Brown, through this brief dwelling with their immortal songs; but if this intensive interpretative study of the highest lyric expression does not result in a new sense of word values, a new sensitiveness to the music of the English language, out of which the songs of America must be made, then the study will have failed in its purpose toward you. If from this suggestive analysis of Shelley's "Skylark" you receive no impulse to use words with a new delight in the fitting of sound to sense, a new reverence for their harmonious arrangement to suggest and sustain an atmosphere; if, in short, your vocabulary is not enriched and your choice of words clarified through this study, then your new acquaintance with lyric expression will have been in vain. And, finally, if some one of you at least is not impelled by these excursions into the world of song to use his enriched vocabulary in an attempt to create a bit of lyric description in prose or verse, then the author of this study, and the teacher under whose direction it is made, must admit a failure to reach with the pupil the ultimate aim of such interpretative effort.
Let us make the test. As a final problem of this study I shall ask you to let your emotion find expression—lyric expression—in a bit of prose description. Don't be afraid! Use your vocabulary! Take as a subject: the bit of earth and sky you have secretly worshiped; the bird song or flight which has charmed your day; the memory of some illumined moment; the effect of any one of these lyrics upon you. Don't be afraid! And remember it is to be literature of feeling rather than thought; description, not exposition.