Oratory, Poesy and Prophecy

ORATORY, POESY AND PROPHECY By Orson F. Whitney II. The commonest error in relation to poetry is the notion that it resides wholly in the art of versification, that it consists merely of metre and rhyme. Any two lines that are made to jingle at the end, no matter how puerile the content, are by most people supposed to be poetic, representative of the divine gift of song. A greater mistake is hardly conceivable. "God bless me and my wife, My son John and his wife, We four And no more." That's not poetry; but there are people simple enough to think so — because, forsooth, it rhymes! The essence of poetry is in thought, sentiment, symbolism, and the power of suggestion. It is the music of ideas, as well as the music of language. Many a verse, perfect in rhyme and metre, has little or no poetry, while prose is ofttimes replete with it. Rhyme bears about the same relation to poetry, as paint or polish to a piano or an organ, made beautiful by such embellishment. It would be an organ or a piano without the paint or polish, but it would not be as pleasing to the eye. "The apparel oft proclaims the man," says Shakespeare. True, but it does not make the man; it only makes him more presentable in society. Even so, the rhyme is not the poem proper. It is an artifice used by the poet to make his thought more attractive. The ear must be charmed before the sentiment can reach the heart. Some poems are of such superior merit as to need no rhyme. The beauty of the thought, the rhythm and majesty of the movement, suffice. The jingle of rhyme would mar rather than enhance the effect. Most of our great poems are rhymeless. Homer's Iliad, Shakespeare's plays, and Milton's Paradise Lost are in blank verse. The Book of Job, the Psalms of David, the prophesies of Isaiah and Jeremiah, the parables of Jesus, the Revelation of St. John, the Vision of Joseph and Sidney — how much would they gain by being put into rhyme. Nothing at all. Rather would they lose' irreparably. Poetry is of three kinds, or it has three grand divisions: lyric, epic and dramatic. Lyric poetry comprises the songs, sacred or secu- lar, in which the poet voices his own thoughts and emotions. Epic poetry is heroic narrative — the poet outside of himself, relating the exploits and achievements of others. Dramatic poetry consists of plays put upon the stage or read in private — character impersonations,

ORATORY, POESY AND POETRY 531 real or fanciful, and the portrayal of human passions and feelings. Notable examples in lyric poetry are the Psalms of David, and the ballads of Robert Burns and Thomas Moore; in epic poetry, Homer's Iliad, Milton's Paradise Lost, and Tasso's Jerusalem; in dramatic poetry, the Greek tragedies, the plays of Shakespeare, and works of other dramatists. By many, poesy is regarded as something vain, frothy, and of no substantial worth. This is because it is not generally understood. The poet holds aloft an ideal, and beckons to the real to "come up higher." Hence he is deemed an idle dreamer, a visionary, an ideologist. Well, the poet is a dreamer. But so is the architect, and the builder of railroads. If there were no dreamers, there would be no builders. It is only a seeming gulf that separates the poetic and the practical, or it only exists because the poet's dream — "the light that never was on sea or land" — must always be in advance of the real, to incite progress. There were poets before there were pedagogues, philosophers or historians. Poesy is the elder sister of History, the mother of Language, the ancestress of Civilization. Many who dislike poetry, or think they dislike it, deeming it unworthy the consideration of utilitarian minds, are poetic in their natures, and are indebted to it for the success they achieve even in practical pursuits,- and for the enjoyment that their lives afford them. Notably is this the case with public speakers, the best of whom owe to the poetry within them the emotional and dramatic power with which they sway the minds and hearts of the multitude. Where there is no poetry there can be no real eloquence. The orator must be a poet, must have a poetic soul, if his orations are to be anything more than emanations of "a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal." "Eloquence," says Bryan, "is thought on fire." Demosthenes had more of it than Cicero, and consequently was the greater orator. "How well Cicero speaks," the people said, after hearing the polished and eloquent Roman. But when Demosthenes thundered his de- nunciations against the Macedonian invader, the Athenians with flashing eyes exclaimed: "Let us go against Philip." Oratory, or the art of public speaking, is mostly a matter of education. The other powers of the orator are his poetic, or creative, powers. The poet makes the speech, the orator delivers it, and it is a great speech, a good speech or a poor speech, according to the amount of poetry that it contains, according. to the- divine fire within it — the power to kindle up the souls of men. "The poets of the world," says Dr. Holland, "are the prophets of humanity. They forever reach after and foresee the ultimate good. They are evermore building the Paradise that is to be, painting the Millennium that is to come, restoring the lost image of God in the human soul. When the world shall reach the poet's ideal it will arrive at perfection, and much good will it do the world to measure

532 IMPROVEMENT ERA itself by this ideal, and struggle to lift the real to its lofty level." Poets may not be prophets in the same degree as the sacred seers and oraclesi of Holy Writ, but the gift of poesy and the gift of prophecy are akin, and there is a point where the two blend and become one. Below that, poesy is tt> prophecy what oratory is to poesy, what the body is to the spirit, the fruit to the tree, the flower to the plant, the stream to the fountain. It is the outward sign and expression of an inward gift and grace. Prophets are poets, but they do not always poetize. Still, the utterances of great prophets are generally rhythmical and replete with imagery. Attest the writings of David, Solomon, Isaiah, and others, veritable prophets and veritable poets, who in some of the grandest poetry ever sung, have indeed built "the Paradise that is to be, painted the Millennium that is to come." Read the parables and sayings of the Savior, ye who love poetry and would inhale some of its sweetest and most fragrant flowers: "Consider the lillies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin, and yet I say unto you that even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these." Did anything more beautiful, more poetic, ever fall from the lips of man? Jesus of Nazareth was a poet, no less than a prophet of transcendent genius. Carlyle, that wonderful prose poet, whose poems are histories, essays and lectures, believed that one capable of being a great poet could be "all sorts of men," or great in almost any direction. He cites Shakespeare, whose genius was so universal that all professions claim him; also Mirabeau, that fiery orator, who, he says, "could have written verses, tragedies, poems and touched all hearts in that way, had his course of life and education led him thitherward." He adds convincingly: "The poet who could merely sit on a chair and compose stanzas, would never make a stanza worth much. The great heart, the clear, deep-seeing eye — there it lies!" It was Byron's conviction "that a man ought to do something more for society than make verses," and this induced him to throw his life into the struggle for Greek independence. It was the opinion of our own Lowell, expressed in a reference to the heroic Milton, that "the ppet's lyre demands an arm of tougher sinew than the sword." More modern instances of the same kind are the patriotic acts of D'Annunzio, the Italian poet, and of Paderewski, the Polish musician. Great painters, such as Raphael and Turner; great sculptors, like Phideas and Michael Angelo — were they not poets, creators, makers of the beautiful and sublime? Carlyle's belief as to Mirabeau's potentialities rests upon the basis that Mirabeau was a poet, not merely an orator, and that it was chance or destiny that made the tongue, in lieu of the pen, his instrument of power. Our author allows for natural aptitude —

ORATORY. POESY AND POETRY 533 Nature's creation of great men in different moulds — but puts cir- cumstance of birth, rearing and environment above all. What is "natural aptitude?" Is it not partly, even largely, the result of prior education, in a world that went before this, in a life that witnessed the sowing of the seed of which this life's conditions are the harvest? What is intuition but inborn knowledge, that which the spirit knoweth from of old? "Study yourselves, and most of all note well Wherein kind Nature meant you to excel." Good advice, Longfellow; but not always easy to follow. It is difficult at times to ascertain where natural aptitude lies. Demos- thenes, a stammerer, stoop-shouldered, almost deformed, might well have doubted his natural aptitude for oratory. But intensive training developed him into the greatest orator of antiquity. Disraeli, whose first speech in Parliament was a failure, and who sat down amidst a storm of hisses, exclaiming, "The time will come when you will hear me," might well have wondered whether he had not missed his forte in aiming to be a public speaker. But the spirit of poesy, the genius of prophecy, was in these men, and experience, the mighty educator, brought it forth. Education cannot make a poet, but it can polish and develop one. The poetic faculty must first be there. Without it all the training in the world will not suffice to make the true poet or the genuine orator. Nothing proves more conclusively that oratory is a matter of education, than the experience of Demosthenes and Disraeli. They were born poets; they made themselves orators. And it was because they were more than orators, that they were able to excel in oratory. Plato was more than a philosopher; he was a poet of the first rank; but "chose to utilize the poetic gift to an ulterior purpose." Such is Emerson's pronouncement upon him. "Every man," says the American sage, "who would do anything well, must come to it from a higher ground." Welcome to April Who does not welcome April, With blossoms in her hair, Soft rains and misty twilight, And perfume laden air? Who does not love young April, As she flits across the land, Waking all the sleeping things Touched by her fairy wand? Tender hearted April, Whose tears so freely flow. Her true face smiling through the rain She brings to make things grow. Rogers, Arkansas. MRS. OTIS GEISE