Rhymes and Rhymesters.--There are rhymesters who are neither poets nor prophets; and there are prophets and poets who never build a verse nor make a rhyme. Rhyme is no essential element of poetry. Versification is an art used by the poet to make his thought more attractive. The rhyme pleases the ear and helps the sentiment to reach the heart--a ticket of admission, as it were. A musical instrument is painted and gilded, not to improve its melodic or harmonic powers, but to make it beautiful to the eye, while its music appeals to the ear and charms the soul. Rhyme sustains about the same relation to poetry, as paint or gold leaf to the piano or organ. Clothing adds nothing to one's stature, to one's mental or moral worth; but it enables one to appear well in society. "The apparel" may "proclaim," but it does not _make_ "the man." Neither does rhyme make poetry. The Essence of Poetry.--The essence of poetry is its idealism, its symbolism. The Creator has built his universe upon symbols, the lesser suggesting and leading up to the greater; and the poetic faculty--possessed in fulness by the prophet--recognizes and interprets them. "All things have their likeness.' [4] All creations testify of their creator. They point to something above and beyond themselves. That is why poetry of the highest order is always prophetic or infinitely suggestive; and that is why the poet is a prophet, and why there is such a thing as poetic prose. "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon, in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." [5] That is poetry, real poetry, full of rhythm, yet having no rhyme. Above and Beyond.--Anything is poetic that suggests something greater than itself. The lilies of the field suggested to the Savior's poetic mind the glory of Solomon. He used them as a means of instilling into the minds of his doubting disciples the great lesson of trust in Providence. Man, fashioned in the divine image, suggests God, and is therefore "a symbol of God," as Carlyle affirms. [6] But Joseph Smith said it first and more fully. He declared God to be "An Exalted Man." To narrow minds, this is blasphemy. To the broad-minded, it is poetry--poetry of the sublimest type. Poetic Ordinances.--The bread and water used in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, represent something greater than those emblems--something above and beyond. The whole sacred ceremony is a poem in word and action. The same is true of Baptism, which stands for birth, creation, burial and resurrection. Fatherhood and motherhood are both symbolized in the baptismal ordinance, the true form of which is immersion. Any deviation from that mode destroys its poetic suggestiveness, its symbolism.