And thou too, Sorrow, tender-hearted Sorrow,
Thou grey-eyed mourner, fly not yet away.
For I fain would borrow
Thy sad weeds to-morrow,
To make a mourning for love's yesterday.
The words in this quotation, merely showing the metre, would have no
appeal to us; with all its perfection and its proportion, rhyme and
cadence, it would only be a construction. But when it is the outer
body of an inner idea it assumes a personality. The idea flows through
the rhythm, permeates the words and throbs in their rise and fall. On
the other hand, the mere idea of the above-quoted poem, stated in
unrhythmic prose, would represent only a fact, inertly static, which
would not bear repetition. But the emotional idea, incarnated in a
rhythmic form, acquires the dynamic quality needed for those things
which take part in the world's eternal pageantry.
Take the following doggerel:
Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November.
The metre is there, and it simulates the movement of life. But it
finds no synchronous response in the metre of our heart-beats; it has
not in its centre the living idea which creates for itself an
indivisible unity. It is like a bag which is convenient, and not like
a body which is inevitable.
This truth, implicit in our own works of art, gives us the clue to the
mystery of creation. We find that the endless rhythms of the world are
not merely constructive; they strike our own heart-strings and produce
music.
Therefore it is we feel that this world is a creation; that in its
centre there is a living idea which reveals itself in an eternal
symphony, played on innumerable instruments, all keeping perfect time.
We know that this great world-verse, that runs from sky to sky, is not
made for the mere enumeration of facts—it is not "Thirty days hath
September"—it has its direct revelation in our delight. That delight
gives us the key to the truth of existence; it is personality acting
upon personalities through incessant manifestations. The solicitor
does not sing to his client, but the bridegroom sings to his bride.
And when our soul is stirred by the song, we know it claims no fees
from us; but it brings the tribute of love and a call from the
bridegroom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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