Some have the idea that free verse belongs in the same category with jazz music and cubist art, but it is not so. Free verse is no oddity. It is one of the best outlets poetry can ever offer for the expression of the moods and thoughts of the human soul. It is not the only form of poetry we should cultivate and preserve, but it is one that will have a real place in the great future of letters. Music and History (1921) It is often said that a nation’s life is mirrored in its literature. This is necessarily true because it is the mission of literature to express life. Even if such were not its purpose, the spirit of an age would naturally find its way into the writings of the period. Literature cannot but be a true reflection of the age which produces it. The same is true of music in an approximate, if not an equal, degree. It also mirrors the life of the age from which it springs. Literature is a word picture of the life of its time. Music is a tone picture of the same thing. A musical composition images the state of someone’s soul at a given moment. That condition of soul is a part of the great composite which we call the spirit of the times. It might about as well be called the personality of the age. It largely determines the thought, motive, and action of the period. It is the chief factor in the making of history. When one sees it spread out before him, he can almost write from it the story of the period represented. The issues of life have always proceeded from the heart, and the heart of any age expresses itself in its musical productions. The great general types of music are all representative of either phases of human life or periods in its history. The age of great passions and majestic emotions produced the symphony. The day of calm devotion and religious faith gave us the oratorio and the hymn. The time of quiet ways and simple joys contributed the pastorale. The age of love brought us the lyric and the ballad. These types of music we still have with us, for music is a permanent record. As we have them today, they tell us what the people of other ages have thought, felt, hoped, joyed, and suffered. We are now as busily engaged in building up a musical record of our times as they were in the making of a volume of work by which others might know their story when they were gone. The Elizabethan period is outstanding in the history of English literature for the quantity and quality of the lyric verse which it produced. It has been said with entire truthfulness that during that period England was a veritable nest of singing birds. Among those who helped to produce that volume of song are William Shakespeare, Ben Johnson, and Christopher Marlowe. Thus far, the work done by the poets and singers of that period has successfully met all the tests of immortality. It is both read and sung throughout the English-speaking world.