Attention and a desire for pleasure are easily distracted in those who have not the habit of reading poetry. And poetry is often surrounded by unnecessary distractions. The very zeal of those who would draw our sympathies to it leads them to stand in the light attempting to explain what needs no explanation, what, indeed, cannot be explained. The lecturer upon music too often talks while the orchestra is playing. After one knows Shakespeare, a discourse on the “lessons of the tragedies” may enlarge one’s understanding. But such disquisitions are a forbidding introduction to any poet. We have in America many worthy persons who lecture on the ethical beliefs of Robert Browning. Of course any interest, any occasion that will bring in a new “convert,” and lead him to think of Browning at all, is a gain--the principal excuse for lectures and criticisms is that they do invite wandering souls in to meet a poet. But it is usually true that two hours’ reading in Browning is more delightful and more profitable than a two hours’ lecture about him. And it is often the case that lectures about his philosophy repel readers who might enjoy his poetry. The lesson of poetry is beauty; the meaning of poetry is exalted emotions. The private special beliefs of the poet are of interest, because those beliefs raised the poet’s intelligence to a white heat, and that heat left us verse crystals which are beautiful long after the poet’s beliefs have passed away. Through his beliefs the poet reaches to great passions that endure, and anyone can understand them without knowing how the poet arrived at them. If a poet cannot deliver his message, a critic cannot do it for him. Shelley was a worshiper of democracy; Shakespeare was a believer in the divinity of kings. Browning was an optimist. Omar Khayyám, as Edward Fitzgerald rendered him in English poetry, was a kind of pessimistic fatalist. All this is interesting to know. But the reader of poetry does not, in the immediate enjoyment of the poets, vex himself with these diversities of faith. Hear the poets themselves: Shakespeare’s unrighteous king, Macbeth, hedged round by his enemies, dulled in feeling yet still keenly intelligent, hears of the death of his queen. She should have died hereafter; There would have been a time for such a word. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. Shelley, the lover of human liberty and the wide freedom of nature, chants to the West Wind: Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is; What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies