Part 12 (1/2)

Is it not a mere tale? a rhyme? a pettiness?--is the good old cause in it?

Has it not dangled long at the heels of the poets, politicians, literates of enemies, lands?

Does it not a.s.sume that what is notoriously gone is still here?

Does it answer universal needs? will it improve manners?

Can your performance face the open fields and the seaside?

Will it absorb into me as I absorb food, air, to appear again in my strength, gait, face?

Have real employments contributed to it?

Original makers, not mere amanuenses?”

Speaking of criticism, it occurs to me how important it is that a poet, or any other writer, should be a critic of himself. Wordsworth, who was a really great poet, was great only at rare intervals. His habitual mood was dull and prosy. His sin was that he kept on writing during those moods, grinding out sonnets by the hundred--one hundred and thirty-two ecclesiastical sonnets, and over half as many on liberty, all very dull and wooden. His mill kept on grinding whether it had any grist of the G.o.ds to grind or not. He told Emerson he was never in haste to publish, but he seems to have been in haste to write, and wrote on all occasions, producing much dull and trivial work. We speak of a man's work as being heavy. Let us apply the test literally to Wordsworth and weigh his verse. The complete edition of his poems, edited by Henry Reed and published in Philadelphia in 1851, weighs fifty-five ounces; the selection which Matthew Arnold made from his complete works, and which is supposed to contain all that is worth preserving, weighs ten ounces. The difference represents the dead wood. That Wordsworth was a poor judge of his own work is seen in the remark he made to Emerson that he did not regard his ”Tintern Abbey”

as highly as some of the sonnets and parts of ”The Excursion.” I believe the Abbey poem is the one by which he will longest be remembered. ”The Excursion” is a long, dull sermon. Its didacticism lies so heavily upon it that it has nearly crushed its poetry--like a stone on a flower.

All poetry is true, but all truth is not poetry. When Burns treats a natural-history theme, as in his verses on the mouse and the daisy, and even on the louse, how much more there is in them than mere natural history! With what a broad and tender philosophy he clothes them! how he identifies himself with the mouse and regards himself as its fellow mortal! So have Emerson's ”t.i.tmouse” and ”Humble-Bee” a better excuse for being than their natural history. So have McCarthy's ”For a Bunny” and ”The Snake,” and ”To a Worm.”

THE SNAKE

Poor unpardonable length, All belly to the mouth, Writhe then and wriggle, If there's joy in it!

_My_ heel, at least, shall spare you.

A little sun on a stone, A mouse or two, And all that unreasonable belly Is happy.

No wonder G.o.d wasn't satisfied-- And went on creating.

TO A WORM

Do you know you are green, little worm, Like the leaf you feed on?

Perhaps it is on account of the birds, who would like to eat you.

But is there any reason why they shouldn't eat you, little worm?

Do you know you are comical, little worm?

How you double yourself up and wave your head, And then stretch out and double up again, All after a little food.

Do you know you have a long, strange name, little worm?

I will not tell you what it is.

That is for men of learning.

You--and G.o.d--do not care about such things.

WHAT MAKES A POEM?

You would wave about and double up just as much, and be just as futile, with it as without it.

Why do you crawl about on the top of that post, little worm?

It should have been a tree, eh? with green leaves for eating.