Chapter VI: Part I: Studies in Vocal Interpretation (3)

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 blessed 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 winged 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 Tempe 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, unwearied,
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 crowned 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 lined 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."

HYMN

BEFORE 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]

[5] This and the following poem appear by special permission of Houghton Mifflin Company, the publishers of Mr. Aldrich's poems.

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]

[6] From _Along the Trail_, by Richard Hovey. Copyright, 1898, by Small, Maynard & Co., Duffield & Co., successors.

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]

[7] By permission of Houghton Mifflin Company.

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 FANCIES

THE 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.

THIRD STUDY

TO DEVELOP THE WHIMSICAL SENSE

Addressing the _Gentle Reader_ in deliciously whimsical vein on the _Mission of Humor_, Mr. Samuel Arthur Crothers declares: "Were I appointed by the school board to consider the applicants for teachers' certificates, after they had passed the examinations in the arts and sciences, I should subject them to a more rigid test. I should hand each candidate Lamb's essays on 'The Old and New Schoolmaster' and on 'Imperfect Sympathies.' I should make him read them to himself, while I sat by and watched. If his countenance never relaxed, as if he were inwardly saying, 'That's so,' I should withhold the certificate. I should not consider him a fit person to have charge of innocent youth." We can readily see from this extract that we need not go back to the early part of the last century to find material for our test of this sovereign quality, a sense of humor. Mr. Crothers himself, the Charles Lamb of our American Letters to-day, shall furnish our subject-matter. Bring your _Gentle Reader_, or _The Pardoner's Wallet_, or the essays collected with the _Christmas Sermon_, to class to-morrow. If these volumes are not in your personal library, your library is sadly lacking. Read "The Honorable Points of Ignorance," "How to Know the Fallacies," or "Conscience Concerning Witchcraft." If any one of these fails to disclose in you the mental alertness and power of discrimination which their author considers to be requisite characteristics of a true sense of humor, then _you_ are sadly lacking in that coveted quality of mind and heart, and it behooves us to make an attempt to supply these deficiencies.

Can a sense of humor be cultivated, and if it can be cultivated, is it safe to do so? some one asks--some one who has suffered at the hands of a clever jester perhaps. By way of arriving at an answer, let us examine a little further the category of qualities which Mr. Crothers considers requisite to true humor.

We have already noted mental alertness and power of discrimination. There can be no question as to the desirability or feasibility of developing these characteristics, since such development belongs to the fundamental effort of education. But these are but two characteristics of the quality we are considering, and not the distinguishing ones. "Humor," continues the category, "is the frank enjoyment of the imperfect." Now we scent a danger! For if, as Mr. Crothers admits, "artistic sensibility finds satisfaction only in the perfect," and since, as we all admit, artistic sensibility is an end in education devoutly to be desired, then is not a cultivation of the "frank enjoyment of the imperfect," oh dear and gentle humorist, a dangerous indulgence? The conclusive answer comes: "One may have learned to enjoy the sublime, the beautiful, the useful, the orderly, but he has missed something if he has not also learned to enjoy the incongruous, the illusive, and the unexpected." It is a conclusive reply, because we know that it is just as essential to achievement in the finest of the Fine Arts,--the art of living, as in every other form of Art, to recognize that the inrush of discord is for the final issue of harmony; that only through our ability to recognize illusion shall we come to know reality; that only through sensitiveness to the incongruous shall we develop a true sense of the fitness of things; that only frank enjoyment can disarm imperfection and find satisfaction in the perfect. So let us not hesitate to do all we can to cultivate a quality which Thackeray defines as a mixture of love and wit; to which Erasmus ascribes such desirable characteristics as good temper and insight into human nature; and for one grade of which, in addition to all its other qualities, Mr. Crothers claims "that it can proceed only from a mind free from any taint of morbidness."

If then we conclude that it is not only safe, but possible and desirable, to cultivate a sense of humor, how shall we set about it? To answer you, as to one way at least, and that a way of interpretation, Mr. Crothers "is left alive," not only to furnish new material for the exercise of the sense, but to point a gently reminding finger toward the immortal sources of good humor,--"Chaucer and Cervantes and Montaigne; Shakespeare and Bacon and Fielding and Addison; Goldsmith, Charles Lamb, and Walter Scott, and in our own country, Irving and Dr. Holmes and James Russell Lowell." Whatever period of time your schedule grants to this phase of the work should be dedicated to a closer acquaintance with the flavor and atmosphere of these great-hearted humorists in their most genial moments. Let us also heed Mr. Crothers' warning against the humor of the Dean Swifts which "would be so irresistible were it not bad humor." Let us avoid more intimate acquaintance with the broad variety furnished by the Mark Twains and Mr. Dooleys, which may be legitimately classed as "good humor," but which is so obvious as to be little conducive to that mental alertness and power of discrimination which we aim to acquire through this study. Instead, let us seek the gracious company of William Dean Howells in the whimsical mood he so often induces.

Accepting, then, as a distinguishing characteristic of the humor we desire to cultivate, ability to enjoy the incongruous, the illusive, and the unexpected, let us look to a master maker of these conditions for class-room guidance in this effort. I suppose Mr. Lewis Carroll has done more to develop this distinguishing characteristic than any other contributor to our Letters. So we shall go on an excursion with his _Alice_ into the _Wonderland_ he made for her. If her frank enjoyment and free acceptance of the incongruous and the unexpected does not prove infectious, we must be forever written down among those who could not understand _Peter Pan_. We shall read and enjoy a chapter or two of _Alice_ together in class, but for suggestive analysis along interpretative lines Heaven forbid that I should lay violent hands on her text. No one can teach you to interpret your _Alice_ save Alice herself. You may walk with her, talk with her, dwindle and grow with her, join her adventures in any way she will permit, but you may not analyze nor dissect her. You may learn to interpret her only by living with her and loving her.

Now _Aesop_ is another matter. However long you may live with him, however much you may love his fables, there is a trick of interpretation to be learned in voicing his philosophy which will develop the whimsical side of your sense of humor and counteract the insistent moral tone attached to every fable.

SUGGESTIVE ANALYSIS

The danger in handling a fable does not lie, as the interpreter seems so often to think, in adopting too serious a tone. All the literature of pure fancy, from the humorous essays of Bacon through the _Arabian Nights_ to the nonsensical rhymes of Lear, must be treated with great gravity of tone and temper by the interpreter. It is not levity, but only whimsicality of temperament, I demand from one who would read from this particular lore to me. I want my whimsical friend to interpret my Chaucer and Crothers, _Peter Pan_ and the _Pied Piper_, Hans Christian Andersen, Carroll, and Lear, and all the rest of the genial host who minister to my most precious sense of nonsense. And, perhaps, most of all, it is he (the whimsical friend) who must read fables to me, for a fable, the dictionary tells us, is "a story in which, by the imagined dealings of men with animals or mere things, or by the supposed doings of these alone, useful lessons are taught." Now a moral "rubbed in" is like an overdose of certain kinds of medicine, where a little cures, too much kills. It is the presence of the _lesson_ which the whimsical tone alone can offset. The whimsical tone never falls into the monotone. Whimsicality always seeks variety of emphasis and movement. Let us apply this to the reading of the fable called

THE CROW AND THE PITCHER

A crow, half dead with thirst, came upon a pitcher which had once
been full of water; but when the crow put his beak into the mouth
of the pitcher he found that only very little water was left in it,
and that he could not reach far enough down to get at it. He tried,
and he tried, but at last had to give up in despair. Then a thought
came to him, and he took a pebble and dropped it into the pitcher.
Then he took another pebble and dropped it into the pitcher. Then
he took another pebble and dropped that into the pitcher. Then he
took another pebble and dropped that into the pitcher. Then he took
another pebble and dropped that into the pitcher. Then he took
another pebble and dropped that into the pitcher. At last, at last,
he saw the water mount up near him; and after casting in a few more
pebbles he was able to quench his thirst and save his life.

Little by little does the trick.

How shall we avoid the monotony of the lines beginning "Then he took another pebble and dropped it into the pitcher"? Note that this line is followed by one in which but two words are changed, and then by a line with but one change, and then by three lines with no change at all. Our only hope lies in a variation of emphasis and movement--a whimsical variation. Try it! Give "another" the particular stress in reading the first of these lines. Pause at the close of the line as if to study the effect of the pebble. In the next line "that," of course, takes the emphasis. Pause before the word and give it a salient stress. The movement of the voice through these two lines has been deliberate. On the next line hasten it a little, and make the pause at the close of the line shorter. With the fourth line let the tone settle down to work. Give each of the first five words equal stress. With the fifth and last line let us feel that you may "go on forever," and surprise us with a very short pause and a joyful stress upon "at last, at last," and don't fail to let the enthusiasm of your tone give us the full sense of the relief which comes with the mounting of the water, and the delight in the conclusion--"he was able to quench his thirst and save his life." And now, most whimsically, let us voice the moral, "Little by little does the trick."

SELECTIONS FOR INTERPRETATION

THE LION AND THE MOUSE

Once when a lion was asleep a little mouse began running up and
down upon him; this soon wakened the lion, who placed his huge paw
upon him, and opened his big jaws to swallow him. "Pardon, O King,"
cried the little mouse; "forgive me this time. I shall never forget
it; who knows but what I may be able to do you a turn some of these
days?" The lion was so tickled at the idea of the mouse being able
to help him, that he lifted up his paw and let him go. Some time
after the lion was caught in a trap, and the hunters, who desired
to carry him alive to the king, tied him to a tree while they went
in search of a wagon to carry him on. Just then the little mouse
happened to pass by, and seeing the sad plight in which the lion
was, went up to him and soon gnawed away the ropes that bound the
king of the beasts. "Was I not right?" said the little mouse.

Little friends may prove great friends.

THE WIND AND THE SUN

The wind and the sun were disputing which was the stronger.
Suddenly they saw a traveler coming down the road, and the sun
said: "I see a way to decide our dispute. Whichever of us can cause
that traveler to take off his cloak shall be regarded as the
stronger. You begin." So the sun retired behind a cloud, and the
wind began to blow as hard as he could upon the traveler. But the
harder he blew the more closely did the traveler wrap his cloak
round him, till at last the wind had to give up in despair. Then
the sun came out and shone in all his glory upon the traveler, who
soon found it too hot to walk with his cloak on.

Kindness effects more than severity.

And, now, here is Alice herself to play with a little. Go fearlessly into her _Wonderland_ and let her teach you "how to meet the illusive, the incongruous, and the unexpected." Let her minister to your ability to enjoy the imperfect. Let her develop your _sense of humor_. If she cannot do so no one can.

DOWN THE RABBIT-HOLE[8]

[8] These following selections are taken from Harper & Brothers'
edition of _Alice in Wonderland_ and _Alice Through the
Looking-Glass_.

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on
the bank, and of having nothing to do; once or twice she had peeped
into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or
conversations in it, "and what is the use of a book," thought
Alice, "without pictures or conversations?"

So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for
the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid) whether the
pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of
getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit
with pink eyes ran close by her.

There was nothing so _very_ remarkable in that; nor did Alice think
it so _very_ much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself,
"Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!" (when she thought it over
afterward, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at
this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the
Rabbit actually _took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket_, and
looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for
it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit
with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and,
burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and
fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole
under the hedge.

In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering
how in the world she was to get out again.

The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and
then dipped suddenly down--so suddenly that Alice had not a moment
to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling
down a very steep well.

Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had
plenty of time as she went down to look about her, and to wonder
what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and
make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see
anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed
that they were filled with cupboards and bookshelves; here and
there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a
jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it was labeled "ORANGE
MARMALADE," but to her great disappointment it was empty. She did
not like to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody, so managed
to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it.

"Well!" thought Alice to herself. "After such a fall as this, I
shall think nothing of tumbling down-stairs! How brave they'll all
think me at home! Why, I wouldn't say anything about it, even if I
fell off the top of the house!" (Which was very likely true.)