Chapter VIII: Act V (4)

"'Do and no wise dream,' he exclaims
'Earth's young significance is all to learn;
The dead Greek lore lies buried in its urn
Where who seeks fire finds ashes.'"

The 'Parleying with Charles Avison' is more a poem of moods than any of the others. The poet's love for music is reflected in his claiming it as the highest expression possible to man; but sadness comes to him at the thought of the ephemeralness of its forms, a fact that is borne in on him by the inadequateness of Avison's old March styled "grand." He finally makes of music the most perfect symbol of the evolution of spirit of which the central truth remains always permanent, while the form though ever changing is of absolute value to the time when the spirit found expression in it.

Even this does not quite satisfy the poet's desires for the supremacy of music, and his final conclusion is that if we only get ourselves into a proper historical frame of mind, any form will reveal its beauty, This is a truth which needs especially to be recognized in music, for we too often hear people objecting to Haydn or Mozart and even Beethoven because they are not modern, never realizing that each age has produced its distinctive musical beauty.

But Browning means it of course to have the largest significance in relation to all forms of truth and beauty of which every age has had its living example--thus--his last triumphant mood is, "Never dream that what once lived shall ever die."

I have been able to throw out only a few general suggestions as to these late masterpieces. There are many subtleties of thought and graces of expression which reveal themselves upon every fresh reading, and each poem might well be made the subject of a special study.

I have said nothing about the Prologue and Epilogue to the Parleyings, not because I love them less, but because I love them so much that I should never be able to bring this paper, already too long, to a close if I once began on them. I hope, however, I have said enough not only to prove the point that these poems give complete expression to the thought of the age, but that Browning appears in them, to borrow an apt term from Whitman, as the "Answerer" of the age. That he has unquestioningly accepted the knowledge which science has brought and recognizing its relative character, has yet interpreted it in such a way as to make it subserve the highest ideals in ethics, religion, and art, and that far from reflecting any degeneration in Browning's philosophy of life, these poems put on a firmer basis than ever the thoughts prominent in his poetry from the first, and which constantly find illustration indirectly and sometimes directly in his dramatic poems.

I am just as unable to find any fault with their subject matter as with their form. The variety in both is remarkable. Religion and fable, romance and philosophy, art and science all commingled in rich profusion. Everything in language--talk almost colloquial, dainty lyrics full of exquisite emotion, and grand passages which present in sweeping images now the processes of cosmic evolution, now those of spiritual evolution, until it seems as if we had indeed been conducted to some vast mountain height, whence we could look forth upon the century's turbulent seas of thought, into which flows many a current from the past, while suspended above between the sea and sky like the crucifix in Simons' wonderful symbolistic picture of the Middle Ages, is the mystical form of Divine Love. _Helen A. Clarke._

SCHOOL OF LITERATURE.

GLIMPSES OF PRESENT DAY POETS: A SELECTIVE READING COURSE.

II. A Group Of American Poets.[2]

1. Edmund Clarence Stedman.

_Readings from Stedman_:--'Hebe,' 'A Sea Change.' New York Scenes: 'Peter Stuyvesant,' 'Pan in Wall Street,' 'The Door Step.' A Sheaf of Patriotic Poems: 'The Pilgrims,' 'Old Brown,' 'Wanted a Man,' 'Treason's Device,' 'Israel Freyer,' 'Cuba.' (In 'Poems' Household Edition. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. $1.50.)

_Query for Discussion_.--Are Mr. Stedman's local and patriotic themes inconsistent with the highest degree of lyric grace, or does his poetic gift appear to best advantage when enlivened by familiar home interests?

2. Louise Chandler Moulton.

_Readings_:--'A Quest,' 'The House of Death.' Sonnets: 'The New Day,' 'One Dread,' 'Afar,' 'Love's Empty House,' 'The Cup of Death,' 'Before the Shrine,' 'As in Vision,' 'Though We Were Dust,' 'Were but My Spirit Loosed Upon the Air,' 'The New Year Dawns,' 'Aspiration,' 'The Secret of Arcady,' 'Her Picture.' (The first two selections and first three sonnets are in 'Swallow Flights.' New edition of poems of 1877 with additional poems; the four following are in 'The Garden of Dreams'; and the four last sonnets and the other poems in 'At the Wind's Will.' Boston: Little, Brown & Co. $1.25 each. For general review of work see, also, 'The Poetry of Louise Chandler Moulton.' Contemporary Writer Series in _Poet-lore_. Vol. IV. New Series. Opening Number, 1900, pp. 114-125.)

_Query for Discussion_.--Is Mrs. Moulton too narrowly restricted to emotional themes and emotional means of expression for bounteous poetic cheer, or is the perfect alliance of her emotional range and workmanship the very source of her lyric excellence.

3. Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

Readings:--'Unsung,' 'Nameless Pain,' 'Quits,' 'Andromeda,' 'Baby Bell,' 'An Untimely Thought,' 'Bagatelle,' 'Palabras Carinosas,' 'On an Intaglio of Head of Minerva.' Sonnets: 'Books and Seasons,' 'The Poets,' 'On Reading William Watson's "The Purple East."' (In Poetical Works. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. $2.00.)

_Queries for Discussion_.--Does Mr. Aldrich escape the usual penalty for laying emphasis on delicacy of finish so that the result is satisfying in its happy precision? Or does he seem cold and elaborately superficial? Does he, so to speak, carve cherry-stones oftener than he engraves cameos?

4. Louise Imogen Guiney.

_Readings_:--'Peter Rugg,' 'Open Time,' 'The Still of the Year,' 'Hylas,' 'The Kings,' Alexandrina, I, x, and xiii. 'The Martyr's Idyl,' 'Sanctuary,' 'Arboricide,' 'To the Outbound Republic,' 'The Perfect Hour,' 'Deo Optimo Maximo,' 'Borderlands.' (From 'A Roadside Harp' are selected the first five poems and the Alexandrina, from 'The Martyr's Idyl and Shorter Poems' the others. $1.00 each. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.)

_Queries for Discussion_.--Is Miss Guiney's scholasticism too dominant in her work? Does she lack human warmth? Or are her restraint and good taste the index of deeper feeling? Does her cultured thought and chaste concentrated power of expression lift her above the ranks of the minor poets?

5. Richard Hovey.

_Readings_:--'Spring,' an Ode, 'The Wander-lovers.' 'Taliesin,' Second, Third, Movements. Sonnets: 'Love in the Winds,' 'After Business Hours,'