PN 6082 .P5 Copy 1 LIBRARY OF CONbKt^ 003 291 405 6 + ssiiiss^sSSPij^^HHHHBS Hoke of 1 ;;:;.;, POETS' PARLEYS A LITTLE BOOKE OF POETS' PARLEYS BEING A SET OF CONVERSA- TIONS BETWEEN SUNDRY PAIRS OF POETS ASSENT- ING OR ANON DISSENTING IN CONVEYING TO ONE AN- OTHER THEIR MINDS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS SELECTED & ARRANGED IN DIALOGUE FORM BY CHAR- LOTTE PORTER AND HELEN A. CLARKE & ACCOMPANIED WITH DESIGNS BY MARION L. PEABODY NEW YORK: THOMAS Y. CROWELL AND COMPANY, PUBLISHERS, 1903 m ^m Copyright, 1903, by Thomas Y. Crowell & Company Published September, 1903 THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, Two Copies Received SEP 18 1903 j Copyright Entry CUSS CC XX0.N0 COPY B. rfs- yk $ >' #> U Composition and electrotype plates by I».,B. Updike; T'fit Merrymount Press, Boston "'Tis but brother's speech . . . Speech where an accent's change gives each The other's soul." BROWNING: Sordello. V. 635. Thanks are given to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Charles Scribner's Sons, Little, Brown & Co., and the Lit- erary Executors of Walt Whitman, for courteous permis- sion to reprint here the extracts made from their authors. CONTENTS ^ ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED AMERICA Page 7 Lanier and Whitman BEAUTY 39 Keats and Browning DEMOCRACY 5 Browning and Shakespeare DREAMS 27 Rossetti and Coleridge EARLY RISING 29 Shakespeare and Hood EVOLUTION 6i Emerson and Browning EVOLUTION OF POETIC ART Si Emma Lazarus and George Eliot FLOWERS 21 Spenser and Shakespeare. FREEDOM Whittier and Lowell IMMORTALITY Tennyson and Browning [vii] CONTENTS LOVE: "ONE WAY OF LOVE" Shakespeare and Browning Page ii LOVE: "ANOTHER WAY OF LOVE" Louise Chandler Moulton and Swinburne 13 MOTHER-WIT Whitman and Burns 55 MUSIC Shakespeare and Shelley 4i NATURE Wordsworth and Bryant i7 PHILOSOPHY Milton and Shakespeare 59 POETRY Shakespeare and Keats 49 POETS Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning 47 ROME Clough and Byron 43 SEA Keats and Emerson 23 SOUL Shelley and Browning 65 SUPERSTITION Burns and Swinburne 3i [ viii ] CONTENTS Page TRUTH 33 Browning and Dryden WAR 15 William Morris and Clough WILL 37 Emerson and Tennyson WOMAN 9 Shakespeare and Tennyson [«] T WHITTIER HE airs of heaven blow o'er me; A glory shines before me, — A dream of man and woman Diviner but still human, The love of God and neighbor; An equal-handed labor; I feel the earth move sunward, I join the great march onward, And take by faith, while living, My freehold of thanksgiving. MY TRIUMPH. LOWELL So charmed, with undeluded eye we see In history's fragmentary tale Bright clues of continuity, [*] POETS' PARLEYS Learn that high natures over Time prevail, And feel ourselves a link in that entail That binds all ages past with all that are to be. UNDER THE OLD ELM. WHITTIER On then, my brothers ! every blow Ye deal is felt the wide earth through ; Whatever here uplifts the low Or humbles Freedom's hateful foe, Blesses the Old World through the New. THE FREED ISLANDS. LOWELL For soul inherits all that soul could dare: Yea, manhood hath a wider span And larger privilege of life than man. COMMEMORATION ODE. WHITTIER O East and West ! O morn and sunset, twain No more forever! Has he lived in vain Who, priest of Freedom, made ye one, and told Your bridal service from his lips of gold? THOMAS STARR KING. [a] A DREAM OF FREEDOM LOWELL The single deed, the private sacrifice, Is covered up ere long - from mortal eyes With thoughtless drift of the deciduous years; But that high privilege that makes all men peers, — That leap of heart whereby a people rise — That swift validity in noble veins — Of choosing danger and disdaining shame, — These are imperishable gains, These hold great futures in their lusty reins And certify to earth a new imperial race. COMMEMORATION ODE. [3] BROWNING WHEN all mankind alike is perfected, Equal in full-blown powers — then, not till then, I say, begins man's general infancy. PARACELSUS. V. 749. SHAKESPEARE How could communities, Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities, The primogenitive and due of birth, Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels, But by degree, stand in authentic place? Take but degree away, untune that string, And, hark, what discord follows ! TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. I. iii. 103. BROWNING But little do or can the best of us: That little is achieved through Liberty. Who, then, dares hold, emancipated thus, [s] POETS' PARLEYS His fellow shall continue bound? Not I, Who live, love, labor freely, nor discuss A brother's right to freedom. WHY I AM A LIBERAL. SHAKESPEARE Where gentry, title, wisdom, Cannot conclude but by the yea and no Of general ignorance, — it must omit Real necessities, and give way the while To unstable slightness : purpose so barr'd, it follows, Nothing is done to purpose. CORIOLANUS. III. i. 144. BROWNING Whom do you count the worst man upon earth? Be sure, he knows, in his conscience, more Of what right is, than arrives at birth In the best man's acts that we bow before. CHRISTMAS EVE. 1034. SHAKESPEARE Degree being vizarded, The unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask. TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. I. iii. 83. [6] LANIER NOW fall the chill reactionary snows Of man's defect, and every wind that blows Keeps back the Spring of Freedom's rose. PSALM OF THE WEST. WHITMAN Be not dishearten'd, affection shall solve the problems of freedom yet ; Those who love each other shall become invincible, They shall yet make Columbia victorious. OVER THE CARNAGE. LANIER How if this contrarious West That me by turns hath starved, by turns hath fed, Embraced, disgraced, beat back, solicited, Have no fixed heart of Law within his breast ? PSALM OF THE WEST. [7] POETS' PARLEYS WHITMAN I see Freedom, completely arm'd and victorious, and very haughty, with Law on one side and Peace on the other, A stupendous trio all issuing forth against the idea of Caste. YEARS OF THE MODERN. LANIER And the Time in that ultimate Prime shall forget old regret- ting and scorn, Yea, the stream of the light shall give off in a shimmer the dream of the night forlorn. PSALM OF THE WEST. WHITMAN — Then turn, and be not alarm'd . . . To where the future, greater than all the past, Is swiftly, surely, preparing for you. TURN O LIBERTAD. [8] 1)1 { ~^ r J y'y. l w$ i ;'/ " ^ ^ §1 11 w ^ W&i&ti •mf'i T ON WOMAN SHAKESPEARE IS beauty that doth oft make women proud; 'T is virtue that doth make them most admired ; 'T is government that makes them seem divine. 3 HENRY VI. I. iv. 128. TENNYSON Woman is the lesser man, and all her passions matched with mine Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine. LOCKSLEY HALL. SHAKESPEARE . . . Yourself But, as it were, in sort or limitation, To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed, And talk to you sometimes? Dwell . . . but in the suburbs Of your good pleasure? JULIUS C^SAR. II. i. 283. [9] POETS' PARLEYS TENNYSON Some said their heads were less. THE PRINCESS. SHAKESPEARE Let husbands know Their wives have sense like them : they see and smell And have their palates both for sweet and sour, As husbands have. OTHELLO. IV. iii. 94. TENNYSON Yet in the long years liker must they grow, The man be more of woman, she of man, Till at the last she set herself to man Like perfect music unto noble words. THE PRINCESS. [ 10] SHAKESPEARE THAT love is merchandized whose rich esteeming The owner's tongue doth publish everywhere. SONNET GIL BROWNING Love is whole And true ; if sure of naught beside, most sure Of its own truth at least; nor may endure A crowd to see its face, that cannot know How hot the pulses throb its heart below. SORDELLO. I. 730. SHAKESPEARE Love is too young to know what conscience is ; Yet who knows not conscience is born of love? SONNET CLI. Love is a babe ; then might I not say so, To give full growth to that which still doth grow? sonnet cxv. [»] POETS' PARLEYS BROWNING How else should love's perfected noontide follow? All the dawn promised shall the day perform. A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON. I. iii. 226. SHAKESPEARE Love 's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending" sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. SONNET CXV1. BROWNING The soul Whence the love comes, all ravage leaves that whole ; Vainly the flesh fades; soul makes all things new. ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND. [ " ] LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON LOVE is a fire, ^ Beware the madness of that wild desire! I know for I was young and now am old. GRANDMAMMA'S WARNING. SWINBURNE Now all good that comes or goes is As the smell of last year's roses As the radiance in our eyes Shot from Summer's ere he dies. PASTICHE. LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON If love could last, I 'd spend my all And think the price was yet too small, To buy his light upon my way, His sun to turn my night to day, His cheer whatever might befall. FRENCH TUNES. [13] POETS' PARLEYS SWINBURNE But his wings will not rest and his feet will not stay for us : Morning is here in the joy of its might ; With his breath has he sweetened a night and a day for us; Now let him pass, and the myrtles make way for us; Love can but last in us here at his height For a day and a night. AT PARTING. LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON When Love was young in days of yore, On bended knee full oft I swore, To him alone I 'd homage pay; I 'd love forever and a day, And love with every day the more. FRENCH TUNES. SWINBURNE For a day and a night Love sang to us, played with us, Folded us round from the dark and the light ; And our hearts were fulfilled of the music he made with us, Made with our hearts and our lips while he stayed with us, Stayed in mid passage his pinions from flight For a day and a night. AT PARTING. [14] WILLIAM MORRIS CANST thou in rhyme Tell stories of the ancient time? Or dost thou chronicle old wars? THE MAN BORN TO BE KING. CLOUGH Really, who knows? One has bowed and talked, till little by little All the natural heat has escaped of the chivalrous spirit. Should I incarnadine ever this inky pacifical finger? AMOURS DE VOYAGE. MORRIS Bitter war ! Wherein the right and wrong so mingled are, That hardly can the man of single heart Amid the sickening turmoil choose his part; For him suffice the changes of the year, POETS' PARLEYS The God-sent terror was enough of fear For him ; enough the battle with the earth. THE EARTHLY PARADISE. CLOUGH Dulce it is, and Decorum , no doubt, for the country to fall, — to Offer one's blood an oblation to Freedom, and die for the Cause; yet— amours de voyage. MORRIS —Yet, for him must idle soldiers range From place to place about the burdened land, Or thick upon the ruined corn fields stand? THE EARTHLY PARADISE. CLOUGH Alas ! 't is ephemeral folly, Vain and ephemeral folly, of course, compared with pictures, Statues, and antique gems!— Indeed,— . . . . . . And yet did I, waking, Dream of a cadence that sings, Si tombent nosjeunes heros, la Terre en produit de nouveaux contre vous tous pret a se battre ; Dream of great indignations and angers transcendental ! AMOURS DE VOYAGE. [ 16] mmmuim w^.x y -i fefiT -riiiiii |^» -.-^-^ . WORDSWORTH THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight, To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY. BRYANT Has nature in her calm majestic march Faltered with age at last? Does the bright sun Grow dim in heaven? or, in their far blue arch, Sparkle the crowd of stars, when day is done, Less brightly? THE AGES. WORDSWORTH Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair; The sunshine is a glorious birth ; [17] POETS' PARLEYS But yet I know, where'er I go, That there hath past away a glory from the earth. INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY. BRYANT Look on this beautiful world and read the truth In her fair page ; see, every season brings New change, to her, of everlasting youth. THE AGES. WORDSWORTH I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth ; but hearing oftentimes The still sad music of humanity, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. TINTERN ABBEY. BRYANT Oh, no ! a thousand cheerful omens give Hope of yet happier days, whose dawn is nigh. ... he whose eye Unwinds the eternal dances of the sky, And in the abyss of brightness dares to span [18] NATURE The sun's broad circle, rising - yet more high, In God's magnificent works his will shall scan — And love and peace shall make their paradise with man. THE AGES. [ »>] SPENSER STROWE me the ground with Daffadowndillies, And Cowslips, and Kingcups and loved Lillies. SHEPHEARD'S CALENDER. APRILL. SHAKESPEARE O Proserpina, For the flowers now, that frighted thou let'st fall From Dis's waggon! daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes Or Cytherea's breath. winter , s tale> ^ iv _ ^ SPENSER Whence is it, that the fiowret of the field doth fade, And lyeth buryed long in Winter's bale? SHEPHEARD'S CALENDER. NOVEMBER. POETS' PARLEYS SHAKESPEARE Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date. SONNET XVIII. SPENSER Yet, soone as Spring his mantle hath displayde, It flowreth fresh as it should never fayde. SHEPHEARD'S CALENDER. SHAKESPEARE When daffodils begin to peer, Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year; For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale. WINTER'S TALE. IV. iii. ^jft jST \A/ [22] THE SEA ^£g£Ai&&35 KEATS OH ye! who have your eye-balls vex'd and tir'd, Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea; Oh ye ! whose ears are dinn'd with uproar rude, Or fed too much with cloying melody, — Sit ye near some old cavern's mouth and brood Until ye start, as if the sea-nymphs quir'd! SONNET ON THE SEA. EMERSON Lie on the warm rock-ledges, and there learn A little hut suffices like a town. I make your sculptured architecture vain, Vain beside mine. I drive my wedges home, And carve the coastwise mountain into caves. Lo ! here is Rome and Nineveh and Thebes, Karnac and Pyramid and Giant's Stairs Half piled or prostrate; and my newest slab Older than all thy race. [23] POETS' PARLEYS Behold the Sea, The opaline, the plentiful and strong. SEA-SHORE. KEATS It keeps eternal whisperings around Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell Gluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the spell Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound. SONNET ON THE SEA. EMERSON Illusion dwells forever with the wave. I know what spells are laid . . . I make some coast alluring, some lone isle, To distant men, who must go there, or die. SEA-SHORE. KEATS Come to pay devotion due, — Each a month of pearls must strew! Many a mortal of these days Dares to pass our sacred ways; Dares to touch audaciously, This cathedral of the sea ! [»4] THE SEA EMERSON Rich are the sea-gods: —who gives gifts but they? They grope the sea for pearls, but more than pearls: They pluck Force then, and give it to the wise. SEA-SHORE. [»5] V ROSSETTI APOROUS, unaccountable, Dreamland lies forlorn of light. LOVE'S NOCTURN. COLERIDGE And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight ; All melodies the echoes of that voice, All colors a suffusion from that light. ODE TO DEJECTION. ROSSETTI There the dreams are multitudes: Some whose buoyance waits not sleep, Deep within the August woods; Some that hum while rest may steep Weary labor laid a-heap ; Interludes, Some, of grievous moods that weep. LOVE'S NOCTURN. [«7] POETS' PARLEYS COLERIDGE Though my path was rough, This joy within me dallied with distress, And all misfortunes were but as the stuff Whence Fancy made me dreams of happiness. ODE TO DEJECTION. ROSSETTI Master, is it soothly said That, as echoes of man's speech Far in secret clefts are made, So do all men's bodies reach Shape or shade? LOVE'S NOCTURN. COLERIDGE Such it seems, ... A fragment from the life of dreams ; But, say that years matur'd the silent strife And 't is a record from the dream of Life. PHANTOM OR FACT. [28] w SHAKESPEARE HILE you here do snoring lie, If of life you keep a care, Shake off slumber, and beware: Awake, Awake! THE TEMPEST. II. i. 300. HOOD Let Taylor preach upon a morning breezy How well to rise while nights and larks are flying, For my part getting up seems not so easy By half as lying. MORNING MEDITATIONS. SHAKESPEARE Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings, And Phoebus 'gins arise, His steeds to water at those springs On chaliced flowers that lies. CYMBELINE. II. iii. 2I . [=9] POETS' PARLEYS HOOD To me Dan Phcebus and his car are naught, His steeds that paw impatiently about, Let them enjoy, say I, as horses ought, The first turn-out. MORNING MEDITATIONS. SHAKESPEARE The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night, Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light. ROMEO AND JULIET. II. iii. i. HOOD Why from a comfortable pillow start To see faint blushes in the east awaken? A fig, say I, for any streaky part, Excepting — bacon . MORNING MEDITATIONS. Sib. <^ [ 3°] BURNS SOUR Bigotry, on her last legs, Girnin' looked back. EPISTLE TO JOHN GOUDIE. SWINBURNE All the dark dead centuries rose to bar The spirit of man, lest truth should make him free. IN THE BAY. BURNS The reverend gray-beards raved and stormed That beardless laddies Should think they better were informed Than their old daddies. Frae less to mair, it gaed to sticks ; Frae words and aiths to clours and nicks, And mony a fallow gat his licks, Wi' hearty crunt; [31 ] POETS' PARLEYS And some, to learn them for their tricks, Were hanged and brunt. TO WM. SIMPSON. SWINBURNE Because the days were dark with gods and kings And in time's hand the old hours of time as rods, When force and fear set hope and faith at odds. IN THE BAY. BURNS Auld Orthodoxy lang did grapple, But now she's got an unco' ripple; And gasps for breath. Poor, gapin', glowerin' Superstition, Waes me ! She 's in a sad condition : Alas! There 's ground of great suspicion She '11 ne'er get better. TO JOHN GOUDIE. SWINBURNE Night's childless children; here your hour is done; Pass with the stars, and leave us with the sun ! TWO LEADERS. [32] BROWNING TRUTH is within ourselves ; it takes no rise From outward things, whate'er you may believe. There is an inmost centre in us all, Where truth abides in fulness. PARACELSUS. I. 7 z6. DRYDEN Thus man by his own strength to heaven would soar, And would not be obliged to God for more. Vain wretched creature, how art thou misled, To think thy wits these Godlike notions bred ! These truths are not the product of thy mind, But dropp'd from heaven, and of a nobler kind. RELIGIO LAICI. BROWNING Watch narrowly The demonstration of a truth, its birth, And you trace back the effluence to its spring [333 POETS' PARLEYS And source within us ; where broods radiance vast, To be elicited ray by ray, as chance Shall favor. PARACELSUS. I. 737. DRYDEN Whence but from heaven could men unskill'd in arts, In several ages born, in several parts, Weave such agreeing truths? RELIGIO LAICI. BROWNING May not truth be lodged alike in all, The lowest as the highest? some slight film The interposing bar which binds a soul And makes the idiot, just as makes the sage Some film removed, the happy outlet whence Truth issues proudly? PARACELSUS. I. 7 S4- DRYDEN How comest thou to see these truths so clear, Which so obscure to heathens did appear? Nor Plato these nor Aristotle found : Nor he whose wisdom oracles renown'd. Hast thou a wit so deep, or so sublime, [34] THE SOURCE OF TRUTH Or canst thou lower dive or higher climb? In doubtful questions 't is the safest way To learn what unsuspected ancients say. RELIGIO LAICI. C3S] u EMERSON NLESS to Thought is added Will Apollo is an imbecile. TENNYSON All Life needs for life is possible to Will. EMERSON No fate save by the victim's fault is low, For God hath writ all dooms magnificent, So guilt not traverses his tender will. THE POET. LOVE AND DUTY. TENNYSON O, well for him whose will is strong! He suffers, but he will not suffer long; He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong. WILL. [37] POETS' PARLEYS EMERSON Where his clear spirit leads him, there 's his road, By God's own light illumined and foreshowed ! WOODNOTES. TENNYSON He, that ever following her commands, On with toil of heart and knees and hands, Thro' the long gorge to the far light has won His path upward, and prevail'd, Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled Are close upon the shining table-lands To which our God Himself is moon and sun. ODE ON WELLINGTON. [ 38 KEATS SPITE of despondence, of the inhuman dearth Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, Of all the unhealthy and o'erdarkened ways Made for our searching : yes, in spite of all, Some shape of beauty moves away the pall From our dark spirits. ENDYMION. BROWNING If you get simple beauty and naught else, You get about the best thing God invents. FRA LIPPO LIPPI. 217. KEATS Beauty is truth, truth beauty,— that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. ODE ON A GRECIAN URN. [39] POETS' PARLEYS BROWNING Indeed, to know is something, and to prove How all this beauty might be enjoyed, is more. cleon. « 9I . KEATS A thing of beauty is a joy forever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us. BROWNING And all this joy in natural life is put Like fire from off thy finger into each, So exquisitely perfect is the same. ENDYMION. CLEON. 103. [40 ] SHAKESPEARE IF you have any music that may not be heard, to 't again. OTHELLO. III. i. 16. SHELLEY Music when soft voices die Vibrates in the memory. A FRAGMENT. SHAKESPEARE I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let's have the tongs and the bones. MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. IV. i. 30. SHELLEY I pant for the music which is divine, My heart in its thirst is a dying flower, Pour forth the sound like enchanted wine, Loosen the notes in a silver shower. A FRAGMENT. [41] POETS' PARLEYS SHAKESPEARE Now, divine air ! now is his soul ravished ! Is it not strange that sheeps' guts should hale souls out of men's bodies? MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. II. iii. 60. SHELLEY It . . . will not tell To those who cannot question well The spirit that inhabits it ; It talks according to the wit Of its companions; and no more Is heard than has been felt before. TO JANE WITH A GUITAR. [4»] CLOUGH ROME disappoints me much; I hardly as yet understand, but Rubbishy seems the word that most exactly would suit it. All the foolish destructions, and all the sillier savings, All the incongruous things of past incompatible ages, Seem to be treasured up here to make fools of present and future. AMOURS DE VOYAGE. BYRON The Goth, the Christian, time, war, flood, and fire Have dealt upon the seven-hill'd city's pride; She saw her glories star by star expire, And up the steep, barbarian monarchs ride ; Where the car climbed the Capitol far and wide, Temple and tower went down, nor left a site. CHILDE HAROLD. IV. lxxx. [43] POETS' PARLEYS CLOUGH Would to heaven the old Goths had made a cleaner sweep of it! Ye gods ! what do I want with this rubbish of ages de- parted, Things that Nature abhors, the experiments that she has failed in? AMOURS DE VOYAGE. BYRON Despise, laugh, weep, for here There is such matter for all feeling. . . . Ages and realms are crowded in this span. Yes ; and in yon field below, A thousand years of silenced factions sleep— The Forum, where the immortal accents glow And still the eloquent air breathes— burns with Cicero. CHILDE HAROLD. IV. cix-cxii. CLOUGH What do I find in the Forum? An archway and two or three pillars. [44] ROME No one can cavil, I grant, at the size of the great Coliseum. Doubtless the notion of grand and capacious and massive amusement, This the old Romans had; but, tell me, is this an idea? AMOURS DE VOYAGE. BYRON Arches on arches ! As it were that Rome, Collecting the chief trophies of her line, Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, Her Coliseum stands. . . . . . . And the azure gloom Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume Hues which have words, and speak to eye of heaven, Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument, And shadows forth its glory. CHILDE HAROLD. IV. cxxviii, cxxix. [45] MRS. BROWNING AT last, because the time was ripe, -£*> I chanced upon the poets ... . . . the only truth-tellers, now left to God. AURORA LEIGH. I. 8 44) 859. MR. BROWNING The one royal race That ever was, or will be, in this world ! BALAUSTION'S ADVENTURE. 2416. MRS. BROWNING Ay, and while your common men Lay telegraphs, gauge railroads, reign, reap, dine, And dust the fiaunty carpets of the world For kings to walk on, or the president, The poet suddenly will catch them up With his voice like a thunder. AURORA LEIGH. I. 869. [47] POETS' PARLEYS MR. BROWNING He with a "look you!" vents a brace of rhymes, And in there breaks the sudden rose herself, Buries us with a glory, young once more, Pouring heaven into this shut house of life. TRANSCENDENTALISM. 39. MRS. BROWNING The poet hath the child's sight in his breast, And sees all new . What oftenest he has viewed He views with the first glory. THE POET. 1. MR. BROWNING They give no gift that bounds itself and ends F the giving and the taking: theirs so breeds I' the heart and soul o' the taker, so transmutes The man who only was a man before, That he grows godlike in his turn, can give- He also: share the poet's privilege, Bring forth new good, new beauty, from the old. BALAUSTION'S ADVENTURE. 2419. [48] 4^^^^^^^r^B^^>^^^^^^ s ^>^& SHAKESPEARE OUR poesy is as a gum, which oozes From whence 't is nourish'd : the fire i' the flint Shows not till it be struck ; our gentle flame Provokes itself and like the current flies Each bound it chafes. TIMON OF ATHENS. I. i. 21. KEATS . . . Poesy alone can tell her dream, With the fine spell of words alone can save Imagination from the sable chain And dumb enchantment. HYPERION, A VISION. SHAKESPEARE And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. V. i. 14. [49] POETS* PARLEYS KEATS . . . The unimaginable lodge For solitary thinkings ; such as dodge Conception to the very bourne of heaven. ENDYMION. SHAKESPEARE . . . Shaping fantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends. MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM. V. i. S . KEATS . . . The leaven That spreading in this dull and clodded earth Gives it a touch etherial — a new birth. ENDYMION. [So] EMMA LAZARUS I AM one who would not restore the Past, Beauty will immortal last, Though the beautiful must die — This the ages verify. GEORGE ELIOT I should ask Whence came taste, beauty, sensibilities Refined to preference infallible? AUGUST MOON. Is your beautiful A seedless, rootless flower, or has it grown With human growth, which means the rising sun Of human struggle, order, knowledge? A COLLEGE BREAKFAST PARTY. [5i ] POETS' PARLEYS EMMA LAZARUS Who seeks shall find Widening knowledge surely brings Vaster themes to him who sings. AUGUST MOON. GEORGE ELIOT Taste, beauty, what are they But the soul's choice toward perfect bias wrought By finer balance of a fuller growth — Sense brought to subtlest metamorphosis Through love, thought, joy— the general human store Which grows from all life's functions? A COLLEGE BREAKFAST PARTY. EMMA LAZARUS He shall be of bards the king, Who in worthy verse shall sing All the conquests of the hour, Stealing no fictitious power From the classic types outworn, But his rhythmic line adorn With the marvels of the real. He the baseless feud shall heal [5*] THE EVOLUTION OF POETIC ART That estrangeth wide apart Science from her sister Art. AUGUST MOON. GEORGE ELIOT Nay, ask The mightiest makers who have reigned, still reign Within the ideal realm. See if their thought Be drained of practice and the thick warm blood Of hearts that beat in action various Through the wide drama of the struggling world. A COLLEGE BREAKFAST PARTY. [S3] B 1 WHITMAN EGINNING my studies, the first step pleas'd me so much, The mere fact, consciousness . . . . . . aw'd me and pleas'd me so much, I have hardly gone, and hardly wished to go, any farther, But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs. INSCRIPTIONS. BURNS Critic folk may cock their nose, And say, "How can you e'er propose, You, wha ken hardly verse frae prose, To mak a sang?" TO J. LAPRAIK. WHITMAN Did you ask dulcet rhymes from me? Did you find what I sang erewhile so hard to follow, to un- derstand? [55] POETS' PARLEYS ... Go lull yourself with what you can understand . . . For I lull nobody. DRUM TAPS. BURNS What's a' your jargon o' your schools, Your Latin names for horns and stools, If honest nature made you fools, What sairs your grammars? A set o' dull conceited hashes, Confuse their brains in college classes! And syne they think to climb Parnassus By dint o' Greek ! TO J. LAPRAIK. WHITMAN Shut not your doors to me, proud libraries, For that which was lacking on all your well-fill'd shelves, yet needed most, I bring. The words of my book nothing, the drift of it everything! INSCRIPTIONS. [56] MOTHER-WIT BURNS Give me ae spark o' Nature's fire! That 's a' the learning I desire. TO J. LAPRAIK. [57] MILTON HOW charming is divine philosophy! Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose; But musical as is Apollo's lute, And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets, Where no crude surfeit reigns. COMUS. SHAKESPEARE Then give me leave to read philosophy. TAMING OF THE SHREW. III. i. 13. MILTON Unsphere The spirit of Plato to unfold What worlds or what vast regions hold The mortal mind that hath forsook Her mansion in this fleshly nook. IL PENSEROSO. [59] POETS' PARLEYS SHAKESPEARE I am in all affected as yourself; Glad that you thus continue your resolve To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy. TAMING OF THE SHREW. I. L 26. MILTON Shall I call Antiquity from the old schools of Greece? COMUS. SHAKESPEARE Only, good master, while we do admire This virtue and this moral discipline, Let's be no stoics nor no stocks, I pray; Or so devote to Aristotle's checks As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured. TAMING OF THE SHREW. I. i. zg. [60] EMERSON ONWARD and on the eternal Pan, Who layeth the world's incessant plan, Halteth never in one shape, But forever doth escape, Like wave or flame, into new forms Of gem, and air, of plants, and worms. WOODNOTES. BROWNING And all lead up higher, All shape out dimly the superior race, The heir of hopes too fair to turn out false, And man appears at last. PARACELSUS. V. 707. EMERSON I tire of globes and races, Too long the game is played ; [61] POETS' PARLEYS What without him is summer's pomp, Or winter's frozen shade? SONG OF NATURE. BROWNING Progress is The law of life, man is not Man as yet. Nor shall I deem his object served, his end Attained, his genuine strength put fairly forth While only here and there a star dispels The darkness, here and there a towering mind O'erlooks its prostrate fellows : when the host Is out at once to the despair of night, When all mankind alike is perfected, Equal in full-blown powers — then, not till then, I say, begins man's general infancy. PARACELSUS. V. 741. EMERSON Let war and trade and creeds and song Blend, ripen race on race, The sunburnt world a man shall breed Of all the zones and countless days. SONG OF NATURE. [62] EVOLUTION BROWNING He shall start up and stand on his own earth, Then shall his long triumphant march begin, Thence shall his being date, —thus wholly roused, What he achieves shall be set down to him. PARACELSUS. V. 764. [63] SHELLEY AH ! to the stranger-soul when first it peeps -*** From its new tenement, and looks abroad For happiness and sympathy, how stern And desolate a tract is this wide world ! BROWNING The earth's first stuff Was, neither more nor less, enough To house man's soul, man's need fulfil. QUEEN MAB. IV. izi. EASTER-DAY. 843. SHELLEY Throughout this varied and eternal world Soul is the only element, the block That for uncounted ages has remained. QUEEN MAB. IV. 139. BROWNING Soul has its course 'neath Mind's work overhead,— Who tells of, tracks to source the founts of Soul? CHARLES AVISON. 181. [65] POETS' PARLEYS SHELLEY Man is of soul and body, formed for deeds Of high resolve ; on fancy's boldest wing To soar unwearied, fearlessly to turn The keenest pangs to peacefulness, and taste The joys which mingled sense and spirit yield. QUEEN MAB. IV. 154. BROWNING As the bird wings and sings, Let us cry "All good things Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!" RABBI BEN EZRA. 70. [ 66] L.ofC. TENNYSON WHAT the philosophies, all the sciences, poesy, vary- ing voices of prayer? All that is noblest, all that is basest, all that is filthy with all that is fair? What is it all, if we all of us end but in being our own corpse- coffins at last, Swallow'd in Vastness, lost in Silence, drown'd in the depths of a meaningless Past? VASTNESS. BROWNING You fear, you agonize, die: what then? Is an end to your life's work out of ken? Have you no assurance that, earth at end, Wrong will prove right? Who made shall mend In the higher sphere to which yearnings tend. REPHAN. 9 8. [67] POETS' PARLEYS TENNYSON Men have hopes, which race the restless blood, That after many changes may succeed Life, which is Life indeed. THE PROGRESS OF SPRING. BROWNING Whereof the effect be — faith That, some far day, were found Ripeness in things now rathe, Wrong righted, each chain unbound, Renewal born out of scathe. REVERIE. 176. TENNYSON Act first, this Earth, a stage so gloom'd with woe, You all but sicken at the shifting scenes. And yet, be patient. Our Playwright may show In some fifth Act what this wild Drama means. THE PLAY. BROWNING No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time Greet the unseen with a cheer! [68] IMMORTALITY Strive and thrive!" Cry " Speed, — fight on, fare ever There as here!" EPILOGUE TO ASOLANDO. Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 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