CHAPTER XI POEMS STUDIED BY THEME Cynics have said since the first outpourings of men's hearts, "There is nothing new in art; there are no new subjects.' But the very reverse is true. There are no old subjects; every subject is new as soon as it has been transformed by the imagination of the poet.-Joel Elias Spingarn: "Creative Criticism" Up to this point we have studied poems either according to metrical form, as in the sonnet, or according to type, as in the song. There are, of course, many other ways of studying poetry, and each of them has its special merits. The method employed in this chapter, though seldom used, has decided advantages. A very illuminating comparison can be made of what poets in various countries and epochs have found to say of such perennially interesting subjects as nature, patriotism, love, war, death, and immortality. The comparative test is also an excellent test to apply to the work of a poet whose rank we wish to determine. After reading the poems contained in this chapter, the reader should decide whether, in his estimation, the American poets come up to the level of the British, and whether the present-day poets of either country measure up to older writers like Wordsworth and Poe. We shall consider four widely dif fering general themes: Death, Abraham Lincoln, Nature, and the City. "Our sweetest songs," wrote Shelley, "are those that tell of saddest thought." Melancholy, said Poe, is “the most legitimate of all the poetical tones." Death seemed to Poe most poetical when it "most closely allies itself to Beauty; the death, then," reasoned Poe, "of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world; and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover." Here, in reality, Poe has combined two themes, love and death. The death of a lovely woman is the theme of nearly all of Poe's best poems, "The Raven,” “Annabel Lee," "Ulalume," "Lenore," and "The Sleeper." Although "The Raven" is the best known of these, "The Sleeper" was, in Poe's estimation, a greater poem. "In the higher qualities of poetry," said he, "it is better than "The Raven'; but there is not one man in a million who could be brought to agree with me in this opinion." THE SLEEPER At midnight, in the month of June, An opiate vapor, dewy, dim, Exhales from out her golden rim, The rosemary nods upon the grave; The ruin moulders into rest; Oh, lady bright! can it be right— So fitfully-so fearfully Above the closed and fringèd lid 'Neath which thy slumb'ring soul lies hid, The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep I pray to God that she may lie While the pale sheeted ghosts go by! My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep, Soft may the worms about her creep! For her may some tall vault unfold— Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) The death of a beautiful woman is a theme which, like most others, may be treated in narrative and dramatic as well as in lyric poetry. It may also be employed in prose fiction or in sculpture and painting, as every one who has seen Millais's "Ophelia" will recall. In fiction one thinks of the beautiful Amy Robsart in Scott's Kenilworth, of Eustacia Vye in Hardy's Return of the Native, of Maggie Tulliver in George Eliot's Mill on the Floss, and of Zenobia in Hawthorne's Blithedale Romance. In Shakespeare's plays one recalls the deaths of Juliet, Desdemona, Cleopatra, and Ophelia. The student should compare the following poems as to sincerity of feeling, beauty of expression, and point of view. He will find it worth while also to look up other notable poems on the same general theme, such as Lamb's "Hester"; Browning's "My Last Duchess," "Evelyn Hope," and "Porphyria's Lover"; Tennyson's "Lady of Shalott" and "Lancelot and Elaine"; Pope's "Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady"; Landor's "The Death of Artemidora"; Hood's "The Bridge of Sighs"; and Rossetti's "The Blessed Damozel," which was inspired by "The Raven." In "Highland Mary" and "To Mary in Heaven” Burns celebrated a woman who is now almost as famous as Dante's Beatrice and Petrarch's Laura. Yet little is known of Mary Campbell except that she came from the Scottish Highlands and was probably a nurserymaid. The story of her romantic parting with the poet is familiar. They stood on opposite banks of a little brook, exchanged vows, and parted never to meet again, for five months later Highland Mary was dead. Drumlie means muddy; aft, often; sae, so. HIGHLAND MARY Ye banks, and braes, and streams around Green be your woods, and fair your flowers, There Simmer first unfauld her robes, And there the langest tarry; For there I took the last fareweel How sweetly bloom'd the gay green birk, As underneath their fragrant shade |