Heads wear a whole hat,
yet fear not that the race will fail or waver in them; like the
crabs which grow in hedges, they furnish the stocks of sweet and
thrifty fruits still. Thus is nature recruited from age to age,
while the fair and palatable varieties die out, and have their
period. This is that mankind. How cheap must be the material of
which so many men are made.
The wind blew steadily down the stream, so that we kept our sails
set, and lost not a moment of the forenoon by delays, but from
early morning until noon were continually dropping downward.
With our hands on the steering-paddle, which was thrust deep into
the river, or bending to the oar, which indeed we rarely
relinquished, we felt each palpitation in the veins of our steed,
and each impulse of the wings which drew us above. The current
of our thoughts made as sudden bends as the river, which was
continually opening new prospects to the east or south, but we
are aware that rivers flow most rapidly and shallowest at these
points. The steadfast shores never once turned aside for us, but
still trended as they were made; why then should we always turn
aside for them?
A man cannot wheedle nor overawe his Genius. It requires to be
conciliated by nobler conduct than the world demands or can
appreciate. These winged thoughts are like birds, and will not
be handled; even hens will not let you touch them like
quadrupeds. Nothing was ever so unfamiliar and startling to a
man as his own thoughts.
To the rarest genius it is the most expensive to succumb and
conform to the ways of the world. Genius is the worst of lumber,
if the poet would float upon the breeze of popularity. The bird
of paradise is obliged constantly to fly against the wind, lest
its gay trappings, pressing close to its body, impede its free
movements.
He is the best sailor who can steer within the fewest points of
the wind, and extract a motive power out of the greatest
obstacles. Most begin to veer and tack as soon as the wind
changes from aft, and as within the tropics it does not blow from
all points of the compass, there are some harbors which they can
never reach.
The poet is no tender slip of fairy stock, who requires peculiar
institutions and edicts for his defence, but the toughest son of
earth and of Heaven, and by his greater strength and endurance
his fainting companions will recognize the God in him. It is the
worshippers of beauty, after all, who have done the real pioneer
work of the world.
The poet will prevail to be popular in spite of his faults, and
in spite of his beauties too. He will hit the nail on the head,
and we shall not know the shape of his hammer. He makes us free
of his hearth and heart, which is greater than to offer one the
freedom of a city.
Great men, unknown to their generation, have their fame among the
great who have preceded them, and all true worldly fame subsides
from their high estimate beyond the stars.
Orpheus does not hear the strains which issue from his lyre, but
only those which are breathed into it; for the original strain
precedes the sound, by as much as the echo follows after. The
rest is the perquisite of the rocks and trees and beasts.
When I stand in a library where is all the recorded wit of the
world, but none of the recording, a mere accumulated, and not
truly cumulative treasure, where immortal works stand side by
side with anthologies which did not survive their month, and
cobweb and mildew have already spread from these to the binding
of those; and happily I am reminded of what poetry is, - I
perceive that Shakespeare and Milton did not foresee into what
company they were to fall. Alas! that so soon the work of a true
poet should be swept into such a dust-hole!
The poet will write for his peers alone. He will remember only
that he saw truth and beauty from his position, and expect the
time when a vision as broad shall overlook the same field as
freely.
We are often prompted to speak our thoughts to our neighbors, or
the single travellers whom we meet on the road, but poetry is a
communication from our home and solitude addressed to all
Intelligence. It never whispers in a private ear. Knowing this,
we may understand those sonnets said to be addressed to
particular persons, or "To a Mistress's Eyebrow." Let none feel
flattered by them. For poetry write love, and it will be equally
true.
No doubt it is an important difference between men of genius or
poets, and men not of genius, that the latter are unable to grasp
and confront the thought which visits them. But it is because it
is too faint for expression, or even conscious impression. What
merely quickens or retards the blood in their veins and fills
their afternoons with pleasure they know not whence, conveys a
distinct assurance to the finer organization of the poet.
We talk of genius as if it were a mere knack, and the poet could
only express what other men conceived. But in comparison with
his task, the poet is the least talented of any; the writer of
prose has more skill. See what talent the smith has. His
material is pliant in his hands. When the poet is most inspired,
is stimulated by an _aura_ which never even colors the afternoons
of common men, then his talent is all gone, and he is no longer a
poet.
