The Poetic Principle, Edgar Allan Poe

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The poetic Principle by Edgar Allan Poe. This is a
LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
Recording by Josh Kibby. In speaking of the poetic principle,
I have no design to be either thorough or profound

(00:22):
while discussing very much at random the essentiality of what
we call poetry. My principal purpose will be to cite
for consideration some few of those minor English or American
poems which best suit my own taste, or which, upon
my own fancy, have left the most definite impression. By
minor poems, I mean, of course, poems of little length.

(00:42):
And here in the beginning, permit me to say a
few words in regard to a somewhat peculiar principle, which,
whether rightfully or wrongfully, has always had its influence in
my own critical estimate of the poem. I hold that
a long poem does not exist. I maintain that the
phrase a long poem is simply a flat contradiction in
terms I need scarcely observe that a poem deserves its

(01:05):
title only inasmuch as it excites by elevating the soul.
The value of the poem is in the ratio of
this elevating excitement. But all excitements are through a cycle
necessity transient. That degree of excitement, which would entitle the
poem to be so called at all, cannot be sustained
throughout a composition of any great length. After the lapse

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of half an hour, at the very utmost it flags fails,
a revulsion ensues, and then the poem is in effect
and in fact no longer such. There are no doubt
many who have found difficulty in reconciling the critical dictum
that the paradise loss is to be devoutly admired throughout,
with the absolute impossibility of maintaining for it during perusal

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the amount of enthusiasm which that critical dictum would demand.
This great work, in fact, is to be regarded as
poetical only when losing sight of that vital requisite in
all works of art unity, we view it merely as
a series of minor poems. If to preserve its unity
is totality of effect or impression, we read it as
would be necessary at a single sitting. The result is

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but a constant alternation of excitement and depression. After a
passage of what we feel to be true poetry, there
follows inevitably a passage of platitude, which no critical prejudgment
can force us to admire. But if upon completing the work,
we read it again, omitting the first book, that is
to say, commencing with the second, we shall be surprised

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at now finding that admirable which we before condemned, that
damnable which we had previously so much admired. It follows
from all this that the ultimate aggregate or absolute effect
of even the best epic under the sun is a nullity.
And this is precisely the fact. In regard to the Iliad.
We have, if not positive proof, at least very good

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reason for believing it intended as a series of lyrics.
But granting the epic intention, I can say only that
the work is based in an imperfect sense of art.
The modern epic is of the supposititious ancient model, but
an inconsiderate and blindfold imitation. But the day of these
artistic anomalies is over. If at any time any very
long poem were popular in reality, which I doubt it is,

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at least clear that no very long poem will ever
be popular again, that the extent of a poetical work
is to teris paribus the measure of its merit seems,
undoubtedly when we thus state it, a proposition sufficiently absurd,
Yet we are indebted for it to the quarterly reviews.
Surely there can be nothing a mere size, abstractly considered,
There can be nothing a mere bulk, so far as

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the volume is concerned, which has so continuously elicited admiration
from these saturn nine pamphlets. A mountain, to be sure.
But the mere sentiment of physical magnitude which it conveys
does impress us with a sense of the sublime. But
no man is impressed, after this fashion by the material
grandeur of even the Columbiad. Even the quarterlies have not
instructed us to be so impressed by it. As yet,

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they have not insisted on our estimating Lamar time by
the cubic foot, or Pollock by the pound. But what
else are we to infer from their continual plating about
sustained effort? If by sustained effort any little gentleman is
accomplished an epic that is frankly commend him for the effort,
if this indeed be a thing concommendable. But let us
forbear praising the epoch on the effort's account. It is

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to be hoped that common sense in the time to
come will prefer deciding upon a work of art rather
by the impression it makes, by the effect it produces,
than by the time it took to impress the effect,
or by the amount of sustained effort which had been
found necessary in affecting the impression. The fact is that
perseverance is one thing, and a genius quite another. Nor

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can all the quarterlies in Christendom confound them by and
by this proposition, with many which I have been just urging,
will be received as self evident. In the meantime, by
being generally condemned as falsities, they will not be essentially
damaged as truths. On the other hand, it is clear
that a poem may be improperly brief. Undue brevity degenerates
into mere epigramma. A very short poem, while now in

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them producing a brilliant or vivid never produces a profound
or enduring effect. There must be the steady pressing down
of the stamp upon the wax de barangeas wrought innumerable
things pungent in spirit, stirring, but in general they have
been too ponderous to stamp themselves deeply into the public attention,
And thus, as so many feathers of fancy, have been
blown aloft, only to be whistled down the wind. A

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remarkable instance of the effect of undubrevity and depressing a
poem and keeping it doubt of the popular view is
afforded by the following exquisite little serenade. I arise from
dreams of thee in the first sweet sleep of night,
when the winds are breathing low and the stars are
shining bright. I arise from dreams of thee, and a
spirit in my feet has led me who knows how
to thy chamber windows sweet, the wandering airs, They faint

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in the dark, the silent stream. The champac odors fail
like sweet thoughts in a dream. The nightingale's complaint. It
dies upon her heart as I must die, unshine, oh beloved,
as thou art, oh lift me from the grass, I die,
I faint, I fail. Let thy love and kisses rain
on my lips, and eyelids pale my cheek is cold
and white, alas my heart beats loud and fast. Oh

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press it close to shine again, where it will break
at last. Very few, perhaps are familiar with these lines,
yet no less a poet than Shelley is their author.
Their warm, yet delicate and ethereal imagination will be appreciated
by all, but by none so thoroughly as by him
who has himself arisen from sweet dreams of one beloved
to bathe in the aromatic air of a southern midsummer night.

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One of the finest poems by willis the very best,
in my opinion, which he has ever written. Has no doubt,
through the same defect of undou brevity been kept back
from its proper position. Not less in the the shadows
lay along Broadway twas near the twilight tide, and slowly
there a lady fair was walking in her pride. Alone
walked she but viewlessly walked, spirits at her side. Peace

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charmed the street beneath her feet, and honor charmed the air,
And all astir looked kind on her and called her
good as fair. For all God ever gave to her,
she kept with cherry care. She kept with care, her
beauties rare from lover's warm and true, for heart was
cold to all but gold. And the rich came not
to one, but honored well her charms to sell. If
priests the selling do now walking. There was one more fair,

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a slight girl, lily pale, and she had unseen company
to make the spirit quail TwixT wanton scorn. She walked forlorn,
and nothing could avail. No mercy now can clear her
brow from this world's peace to pray for As love's
wild prayer dissolved in air, her woman's heart gave way.
But the sin forgiven by Christ in heaven by man
is cursed alway. In this composition we find it difficult

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to recognize the Willis who has written so many mere
verses of society. The lines are not only rich the ideal,
but full of energy, while they breathe in earnestness, an
evident sincerity of a sentiment for which we look in
vain throughout all the other works of this author. While
the epic Mania, while the idea that to merit and
poetry perlxity is indispensable, has for some years past been

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gradually dying out of the public mind by mere dint
of its own absurdity. We find it succeeded by a
heresy too palpably false to be long tolerated, but one which,
in the brief period it is already endured, may be
said to have accomplished more in the corruption of our
poetical literature than all its other enemies combined. I allude
to the heresy of the didactic. It has been assumed

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tacitly and devowedly, directly and indirectly, that the ultimate object
of all poetry is truth. Every poem, it is said,
should inculcate a morals, and by this moral is the
poetical merit of the work to be adjudged. We Americans
especially have patronized this happy idea, and we Bostonians very
especially have developed it in full. We have taken it

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into our heads that to write a poem simply for
the poem's sake, and to acknowledge such to have been
our design, would be to confess ourselves radically wanting in
the true poetic dignity and force. But the simple fact
is that would we but permit ourselves to look into
our own souls, we should immediately there discover under the
sun there neither exists nor can exist any work more

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thoroughly dignified, more supremely noble, than this very poem, this poem,
per se, this poem, which is a poem, and nothing more,
this poem written solely for the poem's sake, with as
deep a reverence for the true as ever inspired by
the bosom of man, I would nevertheless limit in some
measure its modes of inculcation. I would limit to enforce them.

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I would not enfeeble them by dissipation. The demands of
truth are severe. She has no sympathy with the myrtles.
All that which is so indispensable in song has precisely
all that with which she has nothing whatever to do.
It is but making her a flaunting paradox to wreathe
her in gems and flowers. In enforcing her truth, we
need severity rather than efflorescence of language. We must be simple, precise, terse.

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We must be cool, calm, unimpassioned. In a word, we
must be in that mood which, as nearly as possible,
is the exact converse of the poetical. He must be
blind and d You do not perceive the radical and
cosmal difference between the truthful and the poetical modes of inculcation.
He must be theory mad beyond redemption, who, in spite
of these differences, shall still persist in attempting to reconcile

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the obstinate oils and waters of poetry and truth. Dividing
the world of mind into its three most immediately obvious distinctions,
we have the pure intellect, taste, and the moral sense.
I place taste in the middle, because it is just
this position which in the mind it occupies. It holds
intimate relations with either extreme, but from the moral sense

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is separated by so faint a difference that Aristotle has
not hesitated to place some of its operations among the
virtues themselves. Nevertheless, we find the offices of the trio
marked with a sufficient distinction. Just as the intellect concerns
itself with truth, so taste informs us of the beautiful,
while the moral sense is regardful of duty of this latter,

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while conscience teaches the obligation and reason the expediency. Taste
contents herself with theid, displaying the charms waging war upon
wes solely on the ground of her deformity, her disproportion,
her animosity to the fitting to the appropriate, to the harmonious,
and a word to beauty. An immortal instinct deep within
the spirit of man is thus plainly a sense of

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the beautiful. This it is which administers to his delight
in the manifold forms and sounds and odors and sentiments
amid which he exists. And just as the lily is
repeated in the lake, or the eyes of Amarillus in
the mirror, so is the mere oral or written repetition
of these forms and sounds, and colors and odors and
sentiments a duplicate source of the light. But this mere

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repetition is not poetry. He who shall simply sing, with
however glowing enthusiasm, or with however vivid a truth of
description of the sights and sounds, and odors and colors
and sentiments which greet him in common with all mankind,
he I say, has yet failed to prove his divine title.
There is still a something in the distance which he
has been unable to attain. We have still ella thirst,

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unquenchable to allay, which he has not shown us the
crystal springs. This thirst belongs to the immortality of man.
It is at once a consequence and an indication of
his perennial existence. It is the desire of the moth
for the star. It is no mere appreciation of the
beauty before us, but a wild effort to reach the
beauty above. Inspired by an ecstatic precience of the glories

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beyond the grave, we struggle, by multiform combinations among the
things and thoughts of time, to attain a portion of
that loveliness whose very elements perhaps appertain to eternity alone.
And thus, when by poetry or when by music the
most entrancing of the poetic moods, we find ourselves melted
into tears. We weep, then, not as the abbot Gravina supposes,

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through excess of pleasure, but through a certain petulant, impatient
sorrow at our inability to grasp now wholly here on
earth at once and forever, those divine and rapturous joys
of which, through the poem or through the music, we
attain to but brief and indeterminate glimpses. The struggle to
apprehend the supernal loveliness. This struggle on the part of souls,

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fittingly constituted, has given to the world all that which
it the world has ever been enabled at once to
understand and to feel as poetic. The poetic sentiment, of course,
may develop itself in various modes in painting and sculpture,
and architecture, in the dance, very especially in music, and
very peculiarly and with a wide field in the composition

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of the landscape garden. Our present theme, however, has regard
only to its manifestation in words. And here let me
speak briefly on the topic of rhythm, contenting myself with
the certainty that music, in its various modes of meter,
rhythm and rhyme, is of so vast a moment. In
poetry as never to be wisely rejected, is so vitally
important and adjunct, that he is simply silly who declines

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its assistance. I will not now pause to maintain its
absolute essentiality. It is in music, perhaps that the soul
most nearly attains the great end for which wh when
inspired by the poetic sentiment, its struggles the creation of
supernal beauty. And it may be indeed that here the
sublime end is now and then attained. In fact, we

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are often made to feel with the shivering delight that
from an earthly harp are stricken notes which cannot have
been unfamiliar to the angels. And thus there can be
little doubt that in the union of poetry with music
in its popular sense, we shall find the widest field
for the poetic development. The old bards and men singers
had advantages which we do not possess, and Thomas Moore,

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singing his own songs was in the most legitimate manner
perfecting them as poems. To recapitulate, then, I would define
a brief the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation
of beauty, its sole arbiter's taste with the intellect or
with the conscience. It has only collateral relations, unless, incidentally,
it has no concern whatever, either with duty or with truth.

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A few words, however, in explanation, that pleasure, which is
that once the most pure, the most elevating, and the
most intense, is derived, I maintain from the contemplation of
the beautiful. In the contemplation of beauty, we alone find
it possible to attain that pleasurable elevation or excitement of
the soul, which we recognize as the poetic sentiment, and

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which is so easily distinguished from truth, which is the
satisfaction of the reason or from passion, which is the
excitement of the heart. I make beauty. Therefore, using the
word as inclusive of the sublime. I make beauty the
province of the poem, simply because it is an obvious
rule of art that effects should be made to spring
as directly as possible from their causes. No one as

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yet having been weak enough to deny that the peculiar
elevation in question is at least most readily attainable in
the poem. Yet by no means follows, however, that the
incitements of passion are the precepts of duty, or even
the lessons of truth may not be introduced into a poem,
and with advantage, for they may subserve incidentally in various
ways the general purposes of the work. But the true

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artist will always trive to tone them down in proper
subjection to that beauty which is the atmosphere and the
real essence of the poem. I cannot better introduce the
few poems which I shall present for your consideration than
by the citation of the Prome de Longfellow's Waif the
day is done and the darkness falls from the wings

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of night, as a feather is waif died downward from
an eagle in his flight. I see the lights of
the village gleam through the rain in the mist, and
a feeling of sadness comes o'er me that my soul
cannot resist, a feeling of sadness and longing that is
not akin to pain, and resembles sorrow only as the
mist resembles the rain. Come, Read to me some poems,
some simple and heartfelt lay, that shall soothe this restless

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feeling and banish the thoughts of day. Not from the
grand old masters, not from the bard's sublime, whose distant
footsteps echo through the corridors of time, For like strains
of martial music, their mighty thoughts suggest life's endless toil
and endeavor. And tonight I long for rest. Read from
some humbler poet whose songs gushed from his heart as

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showers from the clouds of summer, or tears from the
eyelid start, who, through long days of labor and night's
devoid of ease, still heard in his soul the music
of wonderful melodies, such songs of power to quiet the
restless pulse of care, And come, like the benediction that
follows after prayer. Then read from the treasured volume the
poem of thy choice, and lend to the rhyme of

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the poet, the beauty of thy voice, and the night
shall be filled with music, and the cares that infest
the day shall fold their tints like the Arabs, and
is silently still away with no great range of imagination.
These lines have been justly admired for the delicacy of expression.
Some of the images are very effective. Nothing can be
better than the barred sublime, whose distant footsteps echo down

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the corridors of time. The idea of the las Quatrain
is also very effective. The poem on the whole, however,
is chiefly to be admired for the graceful insouissance of
its meter, so well in accordance with the character of
the sentiments, and especially for the ease of the general manner.
This ease or naturalness. In a literary style, it has
long been the fashion to regard as ease and appearance

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alone as a point of really difficult attainment. But not so.
A natural manner is difficult only to him who should
never meddle with it. To the unnatural it is, but
the result of writing with the understanding or with the instinct,
that the tone in composition should always be that which
the mass of mankind would adopt, and it must perpetually vary,
of course, with the occasion. The author, who, after the

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fashion of the North American Review, should be upon all
occasions merely quiet, must necessarily, upon many occasions be simply
silly or stupid, and has no more right to be
considered easy or natural than a cockney exquisite, or than
the sleeping beauty in the waxworks. Among the minor poems
of Bryant, none is so much impressed to me as

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the one which he entitles June I quote only a
portion of it. There through the long, long summer hours,
the golden light should lie, and thick young herbs and
groups of flowers stand in their beauty. By the oriole
should build and tell his love tale. Close beside my cell.
The idle butterfly should rest him there, and there be
heard the housewife be and humming bird. And what if

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cheerful shouts at noon come from the village, scent or
songs of maids beneath the moon, with fairy laughter blint
And what if in the evening light, betrothed lovers walk
in sight of my low monument. I would the lovely
scene around might know no sadder sight nor sound. I know,
I know I should not see the season's glorious show,
nor would its brightness shine for me, nor its wild

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music flow. But if around my place of sleep the
friends I love should come to weep, they might not
haste to go. Soft airs and song, and the light
and bloom should keep them lingering by my tomb. These,
to their softened hearts, should bear the thoughts of what
has been, and speak of one you cannot share the
gladness of the scene, whose part in all the pomp
that fills the circuit of the summer hills is that

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his grave is green. And deeply would their hearts rejoice
to hear again his living voice. The rhythmical flow here
is even voluptuous. Nothing could be more melodious. The poem
has always affected me in a remarkable manner. The intense
melancholy which seems to well up perforce to the surface
of all the poet's cheerful sayings about his grave we

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find thrilling us to the soul. While there is the
truest poetic elevation in the thrill. The impression left is
one of a pleasurable sadness. And if in the remaining
compositions which I shall introduce to you there be more
or less of a similar tone, always apparent, let me
remind you that, how or why we know not, this
certain taint of sadness is inseparably connected with all the

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higher manifestations of true beauty. It is nevertheless a feeling
of sadness and longing that is not akin to pain,
and resembles sorrow only as the mist resembles the rain.
The taint of which I speak is clearly perceptible, even
in a poem so full of brilliancy and spirit as
the health of Edward Cote Pinkney. I fill this cup

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to one made up of loveliness alone, a woman of
her gentle sex, the seeming paragon to whom the better
elements and kindly stars have given a form so fair that,
like the air, tis less of earth than heaven. Her
every tone is music's own, like those of morning birds,
and something more than melody dwells. Ever in her words

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the coinage of her heart are they, and from her
lips each flows, as one may see, the burdened bee
forth issue from the rose. Affections are as thoughts to her,
the measures of her hours. Her feelings have the flagrancy,
the freshness of young flowers, and lovely passions changing oft
so fill her. She appears the image of themselves by
turns the idol of past years, of her bright face,

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when glance will trace a picture on the brain, and
of her voice and echoing hearts. A sound must long remain.
But memory such as mine, of her so very much endears.
When death is nigh. My latest sigh will not be LIFs,
but hers. I filled this cup to one made up
of loveliness alone, a woman of her gentle sex, the
seeming paragon her health and wood on earth. There stood

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some more of such a frame, that life might be
all poetry and weariness a name. It was the misfortune
of mister Pinkney to have been born too far south.
Had he been a New Englander, it is probable that
he would have been ranked as the first of American
lyrists by that magnanimous cabal which has so long controlled
the destinies of American letters. In conducting the thing called

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the North American Review. The poem just cited is especially beautiful.
But the poetic elevation which it induces we must refer
chiefly to our sympathy in the poet's enthusiasm. We pardon
his hyberboles for the evident earnestness with which they are uttered.
It was by no means my design, however, to expatiate
upon the merits of what I should read you. These

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will necessarily speak for themselves. Boccolini, in his Advertisements from Parnassus,
tells us that Zoilus once presented Apollo of very caustic
criticism upon a very admirable book, whereupon the god asked
him for the beauties of the work. He replied that
he only busied himself about the errors. On hearing this, Apollo,
handing him a sack of unwindowed wheat, bade him pick

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out all the chaef for his reward. Now, this fable
answers very well as a hit at the critics. But
I am by no means sure that the God was
in the right. I am by no means certain that
the true limits of the critical duty are not grossly misunderstood.
Excellence in a poem especially may be considered in the
light of an axiom which need only be properly put
to become self evident. It is not excellence if it

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require to be demonstrated as such. And thus to point
out too particularly the merits of a work of art
is to admit that they are not merits altogether. Among
the melodies of Thomas Moore is one whose distinguished character
as a poem proper seems to have been singularly left
out of you. I allude to his lines beginning come
rest in this bosom. The intense energy of their expression

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is not surpassed by anything In Byron. There are two
of the line in which a sentiment is conveyed that
embodies thee all in all of the divine passion of love,
a sentiment which perhaps has found its echo in more
and a more passion at human hearts than any other
single sentiment ever embodied in words. Come rest in this spuzzum,
my own, stricken dear, Though the herd is fled from thee,

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thy home is still here. Here, still is the smile
that no cloud canor cast, And a heart and a
hand all thy own to the last. Oh, what was
love made for? If tis not the same through joy
and through torment, through glory and shame. I know not.
I ask not if guilts in that heart. I but
know that I love thee whatever thou art. Thou hast
called me thy angel in moments of bliss, and thy angel,

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I'll be mid the horrors of this through the furnace,
and shrinking thy steps to pursue and shield thee, and
save thee, or perish there too. It has been the
fashion of late days to deny More imagination while granting
him fancy, a distinction originating with Coleridge, than whom no
man more fully comprehended the great powers of More. The
fact is that the fancy of this poet so far

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predominates over all his other faculties, and over the fancy
of all other men, as to have induced very naturally
the idea that he is fanciful only. But never was
there a greater mistake, never was a grosser wrong done
the fame of a true poet in the compass of
the English language. I can call to mind no poem
more profoundly, more weirdly imaginative in the best sense than

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the lines commencing I would I were by that dim
lake which of the composition of Thomas Moore, I regret
that I am unable to remember them. One of the noblest,
and speaking of fancy, one of the most singularly fanciful
of modern poets was Thomas Hood, his pherainas had always
for me an inexpressible charm O. Saw ye, not the Fariness.

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She's gone into the west to dazzle when the sun
is down and rob the world of rest. She took
our daylight with her, the smiles that we love best
with morning blushes on her cheek and pearls upon her breast. Oh,
turn again, Farines, before the fall of night, for fear
the moon should shine alone in star's unrivaled bright and
blessed will the lover be that walks beneath their light

(26:08):
and breathes the love against thy cheek? I dare not
even write, would I had been Farines, that gallant cavalier
who rode so gaily by thy side and whispered thee
so near? Were there no bonny dames at home, or
no true lovers here, that he should cross the seas
to wind the dearest of the deer. I saw thee
lovely az descend along the shore with bands of noble

(26:29):
gentlemen and banners waved before, and gentle youth in the
maiden's gay and snowy plumes they wore. It would have
been a beauteous stream if it had been no more
Alas alas farines. She went away with song, with music
waiting on her steps, and shootings of the throng. But
some were sad and felt no mirth, but only music's
wrong in sounds that sang farewell, farewell to hear you've

(26:51):
loved so long, Farewell, farewell farinz that vessel never bore
so fair a lady on its deck, nor danced the
light before. Alas for pleasure the sea and sorrow on
the shorel the smile that blessed one lover's heart has
broken many more. The Haunted House, by the same author,
is one of the truest poems ever written, one of

(27:12):
the truth one of the most unexceptionable, one of the
most thoroughly artistic, both in its theme and in its execution.
It is moreover powerfully ideal, imaginative. I regret that its
length renders it unsuitable for the purposes of this lecture.
In place of it, permit me to offer the universally
appreciated bridge of size one, more unfortunate, weary of breath, rashly, importunate,

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gone to her death. Take her up tenderly, lift her
with care, fashion so slenderly, young, and so fair. Look
at her garments clinging like sermons, whilst the wave constantly
drips from her clothing. Take her up instantly, loving, not loathing,
Touch her, not scornfully, think of her, mournfully, gently and humanely,
not of the stains of her. All that remains of

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her now is pure womanly, Make no deep scrutiny into
her mute knee, rash and undutiful, passed all dishonor. Death
has left honor, only the beautiful. Where the lamps quiver
so far in the river, with many a light from
window and casement, from garret to basement, she stood with amazement,
houseless by night. The bleak wind of march made her

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tremble and shiver, but not the dark arch of the
black flowing river. Mad from life's history, glad to death's mystery,
Swift to be hurled anywhere, anywhere, out of the world.
In she plunged boldly, no matter how coldly. The rough
river ran over the brink of it to picture it
think of it, dissolute man, love in it, drink of it. Then,
if you can still for all slips of hers, one

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of Eve's family, wipe those poor lips of hers, using
so clamily loopa pertresses escaped from the comb. Her fair,
auburn tress's most wonderment guesses where was her home? Who
was her father? Who is her mother? Had she a sister?
Had she a brother? Or was there a dearer one
still and a nearer one yet than all other? Alas
for the rarity of Christian charity under the sun, oh,

(28:59):
it was pitiful near a whole cityful home. She had
none sisterly brotherly, fatherly motherly feelings had changed love by
harsh evidence, thrown from its eminence. Even God's providence, seeming estranged,
take her up, tenderly, lift her with care, fashioned, so slenderly,
young and so fair. Ere her limbs frigidly stiff and
too rigidly decently kindly smooth and composed them, and her

(29:22):
eyes closed them, staring so blindly, dreadfully, staring through muddy impurity,
as when with the daring last look of despairing fixed
on futurity, perishing gloomily spurred by contumally called in humanity,
burning insanity into her rest, crossed her hands humbly, as
if praying dumbly over her breast, owning her weakness, her
evil behavior, and leaving with meekness her sins to her savior.

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The vigor of this poem is no less remarkable than
its pathos. The versification, although carrying the fanciful to the
very verge of the fantastic, is nevertheless admirably adapted to
the wild insanity which is the thesis of the poem.
Among the minor poems of Lord Byron is one which
has never received from the critics the praise which it
undoubtedly deserves. Though the day of my destiny is over,

(30:10):
and the star of my fate bath declined, thy soft
heart refused the discover the faults which so many could find.
Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted, it shrunk
not to share it with me. And the love which
my spirit bath painted it never beth found. But in thee. Then,
when nature around me is smiling, the last smile which
answers to mine, I do not believe it beguiling, because

(30:33):
it reminds me of shine. And when winds are at war,
with the ocean, as the breasts I believed in with me.
If their billows excite an emotion, it is that they
bear me from thee. Though the rock of my last
hope is shivered, and its fragments are sunk in the wave.
Though I feel that my souls delivered to pain, it
shall not be its slave. There is many a pang

(30:53):
to pursue me. They may crush, but they shall not contemn.
They may torture, but shall not subdue me. Tis of
THEE that I think not of them, Though human, that
didst not deceive me, though woman that didst not forsake,
Though loved thou forbearest to grieve me, Though slandered, thou
never couldst shake. Though trusted thou didst not disclaim me.
Though parted it was not to fly, though watchful, twas

(31:15):
not to defame me, nor mute that the world might
be lie. Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it,
nor the war of the many with one. If my
soul was not fitted to prize it, twas falling not
sooner to shun. And if dearly that ere bath cost me,
and more than I once could foresee, I have found
that whatever it lost me. It could not deprive me

(31:36):
of THEE from the wreck of the past which Beth perished.
Thus much I at least may recall it be taught
me that which I most cherished deserved to be dearest
of all. And the desert a fountainous springing, and the
wide waste. There still is a tree and a bird
in the solitude, singing which speaks to my spirit of THEE.

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Although the rhythm here is one of the most difficult,
the versification could scare be improved. No nobler theme ever
engaged the pen of the poet. It is the sole
elevating idea that no man can consider himself entitled to
complain of fate, while in his adversity he still retains
the unwavering love of woman. From Alfred Tennyson, although in
perfect sincerity I regard him as the noblest poet that

(32:17):
ever lived, I have left myself time to cite only
a very brief specimen. I call him and think him
the noblest of poets. Not because the impressions he produces
are at all times the most profound, not because the
poetical excitement which he induces is at all times the
most intense, but because it is at all times the
most ethereal. In other words, the most elevating and most pure.

(32:39):
No poet is so little of the earth earthy. What
I am about to read is from his last long poem,
The Princess Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depths of some defined despair rise in
the heart and gather to the eyes in looking on
the happy autumn fields and thinking of the days that
are no more. Rush is the first beam, glittering on

(33:01):
a sail that brings our friends up from the underworld.
Sad is the last, which reddens over one that sinks
with all we love below the verge, So sad, so fresh,
the days that are no more, Ah, sad and strangers
in dark summer dawns, the earliest pipe of half awakened
birds to dying ears, when unto dying eyes the case
miss slowly grows the glimmering square, So sad, so strange,

(33:25):
the days that are no more DearS remembered kisses after death,
and sweet as those by hopeless fancy, feigned on lips
that are for others, deep as love, deep as first love,
and wild with all regret. Oh death in life the
days that are no more. Thus, although in a very
cursory and imperfect manner, I have endeavored to convey to

(33:46):
you my conception of the poetic principle, it has been
my purpose to suggest that while this principle itself is
strictly and simply the human aspiration for supernal beauty, the
manifestation of the principle is always found in an elevating
excitement of the soul, quite independent of that passion, which
is the intoxication of the heart, or of that truth,
which is the satisfaction of the reason. For in regard

(34:08):
to passion alas, its tendency is to degrade rather than
to elevate the soul. Love, on the contrary, love, the true,
the divine eros the Uranian, as distinguished from the diona
on venus, is unquestionably the purest and trust of all
poetical themes. And in regard to truth, if to be sure,
through the attainment of a truth we are led to

(34:29):
perceive a harmony where num was apparent before, we experienced
at once the true poetical effect. But this effect is
referable to the harmony alone, and not in the least
degree to the truth which merely served to render the
harmony manifest. We shall reach over more immediately a distinct
conception of what the true poetry is. By mere reference

(34:49):
to a few of the simple elements which induce in
the poet himself the poetical effect. He recognizes the ambrosia
which nourishes his soul, in the bright orbs that shine
in heaven, and the volumes of the f flower, in
the clustering of low shrubberies, and the waving of the
grain fields, and the slanting of tall eastern trees. In
the blue distance of mountains, and the grouping of clouds,

(35:10):
and the twinkling of half hidden brooks, and the gleaming
of silver rivers, and the repose of sequestered lakes, and
the star mirroring depths of lonely wells. He perceives it
in the song of birds and the harp of bolos,
in the sighing of the night wind and the repining
voice of the forest, in the surf that complains to
the shore, In the fresh breath of the woods, and

(35:32):
the scent of the violet, and the voluptuous perfume of
the hyacinth, In the suggestive odor that comes to him it,
even tied from far distant, undiscovered islands, over dim oceans,
illimitable and unexplored. He owns it in all noble thoughts,
in all unworldly motives, in all holy impulses, in all chivalrous,
generous and self sacrificing deeds. He feels it in the

(35:54):
beauty of woman, in the grace of her step, in
the luster of her eye, and the melody of her voice,
in her soft laughter, in her sigh, in the harmony
of the rustling of her robes. He deeply feels it
in her winning endearments, in her burning enthusiasms, in her
gentle charities, in her meek and devotional endurances. But above all,
aha far above all, he kneels to it. He worships

(36:16):
it in the faith, and the purity, and the strength,
and the altogether divine majesty of her love. Let me
conclude by the recitation of yet another brief poem, one
very different in character from any that I have before quoted.
It is by Motherwell and is called the Song of
the Cavalier. With our modern and altogether rational ideas of
the absurdity and impiety of warfare, we are not precisely

(36:40):
in that frame of mind best adapted to sympathize with
the sentiments, and thus to appreciate the real excellence of
the poem. To do this fully, we must identify ourselves
in fancy with the soul of the old cavalier. Then mount,
then mount, brave gallants all, and don your helm's a maine,
death's careers, fame, and on or call. No shrewish tears

(37:01):
shall fill your eye. When the sword hilts in our hand,
heart whole will part, and no wit sigh for the
fairest of the land. Let piping swain and craven white.
Thus weep and pulling cry Our business is like men
to fight. End of the poetic Principle by Edgar Allan
Poe read by Josh Kibby. Fresh is the first beam

(37:29):
glittering on a sail.