Lifes Enthusiasms | Page 4

I hear the music of distant herds, the
peasant's yodel and the solemn church bells. And after these have
passed away, another train of thought succeeds, of those who have been
brave and true, of kind hearts and bold deeds, of courtesies received
from strangers' hands, trifles in themselves but expressive of that
good-will which is the essence of charity."
That poetry was a means of grace was known to the first man who
wrote a verse or who sang a ballad. It was discovered back in the
darkness before men invented words or devised letters. The only poetry
you will ever know is that you learned by heart when you were young.
Happy is he who has learned much, and much of that which is good.
Bad poetry is not poetry at all except to the man who makes it. For its
creator, even the feeblest verse speaks something of inspiration and of
aspiration. It is said that Frederick the Great went into battle with a vial
of poison in one pocket and a quire of bad verse in the other. Whatever
we think of the one, we feel more kindly toward him for the other.
Charles Eliot Norton advises every man to read a bit of poetry every
day for spiritual refreshment. It would be well for each of us if we
should follow this advice. It is not too late yet and if some few would
heed his words and mine, these pages would not be written in vain.
I heard once of a man banished from New England to the Llano
Estacado, the great summer-bitten plains of Texas. While riding alone
among his cows over miles of yucca and sage he kept in touch with the

world through the poetry he recited to himself. His favorite, I remember,
was Whittier's "Randolph of Roanoke:"
"Here where with living ear and eye
He heard Potomac flowing,

And through his tall ancestral trees
Saw Autumn's sunset glowing;
"Too honest or too proud to feign
A love he never cherished,

Beyond Virginia's border line
His patriotism perished.
"But none beheld with clearer eye
The plague spot o'er her spreading,

Nor heard more sure the steps of doom
Along her future treading."
This is good verse and it may well serve to relate the gray world of
Northern Texas to the many-colored world in which men struggle and
die for things worthwhile, winning their lives eternally through losing
them.
Here are some other bits of verse which on the sea and on the lands, in
the deserts or in the jungles have served the same purpose for other
men, perhaps indeed for you.
"It has been prophesied these many years
I should not die save in
Jerusalem,
Which vainly I supposed the Holy Land.
But bear me to
that chamber, there I'll lie,
In this Jerusalem shall Hardy die."
--
"And gentlemen of England now abed
Shall think themselves
accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhood cheap while
any speaks
Who fought with us upon St. Crispin's day."
--
"Let me come in where you sit weeping, aye:
Let me who have not
any child to die
Weep with you for the little one whose love
I have
known nothing of.
The little arms that slowly, slowly loosed
Their

pressure round your neck, the hands you used
To kiss. Such arms,
such hands I never knew.
May I not weep with you
Fain would I be
of service, say something
Between the tears, that would be
comforting.
But ah! So sadder than yourselves am I
Who have no
child to die."
--
"Your picture smiles as once it smiled;
The ring you gave is still the
same;
Your letter tells, O changing child,
No tidings since it came!

Give me some amulet
That marks intelligence with you,
Red
when you love and rosier red,
And when you love not, pale and blue.

Alas that neither bonds nor vows
Can certify possession.

Torments me still the fear that Love
Died in his last expression."
--
"He walks with God upon the hills
And sees each morn the world
arise
New bathed in light of Paradise.
He hears the laughter of her
rills;
She to his spirit undefiled
Makes answer as a little child;

Unveiled before his eyes she stands
And gives her secrets to his
hands."
--
"Above the pines the moon was slowly drifting,
The river sang below,

The dim Sierras far beyond uplifting
Their minarets of snow.
The
roaring campfire with good humor painted
The ruddy tints of health

On haggard face and form that drooped and fainted
In the fierce
race for wealth.
Till one arose and from his pack's scant treasure

The hoarded volume drew,
And cards were dropped from hands of
listless leisure
To hear the tale anew.
And as around them shadows
gathered faster
And as the firelight fell,
He read aloud the book
wherein the Master
Had writ of Little Nell.
Perhaps 'twas boyish
fancy, for the reader
Was youngest of them all,
Yet, as he read,

from clustering pine and cedar
A silence seemed to fall.
The fir
trees gathering closer in the shadows
Listened in every spray,
While
the whole camp