The Worlds Best Poetry, Volume 4

溄Project Gutenberg's The World's Best Poetry Volume IV., by Bliss Carman
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Title: The World's Best Poetry Volume IV.
Author: Bliss Carman
Release Date: June 28, 2004 [EBook #12759]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
? START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORLD'S BEST POETRY VOLUME IV. ***
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THE WORLD'S BEST POETRY
_I Home: Friendship?II Love?III Sorrow and Consolation?IV The Higher Life?V Nature?VI Fancy Sentiment?VII Descriptive: Narrative?VIII National Spirit?IX Tragedy: Humor?X Poetical Quotations_
THE WORLD'S BEST POETRY
IN TEN VOLUMES, ILLUSTRATED
Editor-in-Chief
BLISS CARMAN
Associate Editors
John Vance Cheney?Charles G.D. Roberts?Charles F. Richardson?Francis H. Stoddard
Managing Editor
John R. Howard
1904
The World's Best Poetry
Vol. IV
THE HIGHER LIFE
RELIGION AND POETRY?By?WASHINGTON GLADDEN
NOTICE OF COPYRIGHTS.
I.
American poems in this volume within the legal protection of copyright are used by the courteous permission of the owners,--either the publishers named in the following list or the authors or their representatives in the subsequent one,--who reserve all their rights. So far as practicable, permission has been secured also for poems out of copyright.
PUBLISHERS OF THE WORLD'S BEST POETRY. 1904.
Messrs. D. APPLETON & CO., New York.--W.G. Bryant: "The Future Life."
The ROBERT CLARKE COMPANY, Cincinnati.--W.D. Gallagher: "The Laborer."
Messrs. T.Y. CROWELL & CO., New York.--S.K. Bolton: "Her Creed."
Messrs. E.P. DUTTON & CO., New York.--Ph. Brooks: "O Little Town of Bethlehem;" E. Sears: "The Angel's Song."
Messrs. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., Boston.--Alice Cary: "My Creed;" Phoebe Cary_: "Nearer Home;" _J.F. Clarke: "The Caliph and Satan," "Cana;" R.W. Emerson_: "Brahma," "Good-bye," "The Problem;" Louise I. Guiney_: "Tryste No?l;" J. Hay_: "Religion and Doctrine;" C.W. Holmes_: "The Living Temple;" H.W. Longfellow: "King Robert of Sicily," "Ladder of St. Augustine," "Psalm of Life," "Santa Filomena," "Sifting of Peter," "Song of the Silent Land," "To-morrow;" _S. Longfellow_: "Vesper Hymn;" J.R. Lowell: "Vision of Sir Launfal;" Frances P.L. Mace_: "Only Waiting;" _Caroline A.B. Mason: "The Voyage;" T. Parker: "The Higher Good," "The Way, the Truth, and the Life;" Eliza Scudder_: "The Love of God," "Vesper Hymn;" E.C. Stedman_: "The Undiscovered Country;" Harriet B. Stowe: "Knocking, Ever Knocking," "The Other World;" J. Very: "Life," "The Spirit Land;" J.G. Whittier: "The Eternal Goodness," "The Meeting," "The Two Angels," "The Two Rabbis;" Sarah C. Woolsey: "When."
The J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, Philadelphia.--Margaret J. Preston: "Myrrh-Bearers."
Messrs. LITTLE, BROWN & CO., Boston.--J.W. Chadwick: "The Rise of Man;" Emily Dickinson: "Found Wanting," "Heaven."
The LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY, Boston.--P.H. Hayne: "Patience."
Messrs. L.C. PAGE & CO., Boston.--C.G.D. Roberts: "The Aim," "Ascription."
Messrs. SCOTT, FORESMAN & CO., Chicago.--C.P. Taylor: "The Old Village Choir."
Messrs. HERBERT S. STONE & CO., Chicago.--G. Santayana: "Faith."
The YOUNG CHURCHMAN COMPANY, Milwaukee.--A.C. Coxe: "The Chimes of England."
II.
American poems in this volume by the authors whose names are given below are the copyrighted property of the authors, or of their representatives named in parenthesis, and may not be reprinted without their permission, which for the present work has been courteously granted.
PUBLISHERS OF THE WORLD'S BEST POETRY. 1904.
A. Coles (A. Coles, Jr., M.D.); J.A. Dix (Rev. Morgan Dix, D.D.); _P.L. Dunbar; W.C. Gannett; W. Gladden; S.P. McL. Pratt; O. Huckel; Ray Palmer_ (Dr. Charles R. Palmer); A.D.F. Randolph (Arthur D.F. Randolph).
RELIGION AND POETRY
BY WASHINGTON GLADDEN.
The time is not long past when the copulative in that title might have suggested to some minds an antithesis,--as acid and alkali, or heat and cold. That religion could have affiliation with anything so worldly as poetry would have seemed to some pious people a questionable proposition. There were the Psalms, in the Old Testament, to be sure; and the minister had been heard to allude to them as poetry: might not that indicate some heretical taint in him, caught, perchance, from the "German neologists" whose influence we were beginning to dread? It did not seem quite orthodox to describe the Psalms as poems; and when, a little later, some one ventured to speak of the Book of Job as a dramatic poem, there were many who were simply horrified. Indeed, it was difficult for many good people to consider the Biblical writings as in any sense literature; they belonged in a category by themselves, and the application to them of the terms by which we describe similar writings in other books appeared to many good men and women a kind of profanation. This was not, of course, the attitude of educated men and women, but something akin to it affected large numbers of excellent people.
We are well past that period, and the relations of religion and poetry may now be discussed with no fear of misunderstandings. These relations are close and vital. Poetry is indebted to religion for its largest and loftiest inspirations, and religion is indebted to poetry for its subtlest and most luminous interpretations.
Religion