VIII
POETRY AND ELOQUENCE
WHERE does eloquence end, where does poetry begin?” inquires Renan in his “Future of Science.” And he goes on to say, “The whole difference lies in a peculiar harmony, in a more or less sonorous ring, with regard to which an experienced faculty never hesitates.”
Is not the “sonorous ring,” however, more characteristic of eloquence than of poetry? Poetry does begin where eloquence ends; it is a higher and finer harmony. Nearly all men feel the power of eloquence, but poetry does not sway the multitude; it does not sway at all,—it lifts, and illuminates, and soothes. It reaches the spirit, while eloquence stops with the reason and the emotions.
Eloquence is much the more palpable, real, available; it is a wind that fills every sail and makes every mast bend, while poetry is a breeze touched with a wild perfume from field or wood. Poetry is consistent with perfect tranquillity of spirit; a true poem may have the calm of a summer day, the placidity of a mountain lake, but eloquence is a torrent, a tempest, mass in motion, an army with banners, the burst of a hundred instruments of music. Tennyson’s “Maud” is a notable blending of the two.
There is something martial in eloquence, the roll of the drum, the cry of the fife, the wheel and flash of serried ranks. Its end is action; it shapes events, it takes captive the reason and the understanding. Its basis is earnestness, vehemence, depth of conviction.
There is no eloquence without heat, and no poetry without light. An earnest man is more or less an eloquent man. Eloquence belongs to the world of actual affairs and events; it is aroused by great wrongs and great dangers, it flourishes in the forum and the senate. Poetry is more private and personal, is more for the soul and the religious instincts; it courts solitude and wooes the ideal.
Anything swiftly told or described, the sense of speed and volume, is, or approaches, eloquence; while anything heightened and deepened, any meaning and beauty suddenly revealed, is, or approaches, poetry. Hume says of the eloquence of Demosthenes, “It is rapid harmony, exactly adjusted to the sense. It is vehement reasoning without any appearance of art; it is disdain, anger, boldness, freedom, involved in a continual stream of argument.”
The passions of eloquence and poetry differ in this respect; one is reason inflamed, the other is imagination kindled.
Any object of magnitude in swift motion, a horse at the top of his speed, a regiment of soldiers on the double quick, a train of cars under full way, moves us in a way that the same object at rest does not. The great secret of eloquence is to set mass in motion,to marshal together facts and considerations, imbue them with passion, and hurl them like an army on the charge upon the mind of the reader or hearer.
The pleasure we derive from eloquence is more acute, more physiological, I might say, more of the blood and animal spirits, than our pleasure from poetry. I imagine it was almost a dissipation to have heard a man like Father Taylor. One’s feelings and emotions were all out of their banks like the creeks in spring. But this was largely the result of his personal magnetism and vehemence of utterance.
The contrast between eloquent prose and poetic prose would be more to the point. The pleasure from each is precious and genuine, but our pleasure from the latter is no doubt more elevated and enduring.
Gibbon’s prose is often eloquent, never poetical. Ruskin’s prose is at times both, though his temperament is not that of the orator. There is more caprice than reason in him. The prose of De Quincey sometimes has the “sonorous ring” of which Renan speaks. The following passage from his essay on “The Philosophy of Roman History” is a good sample:—
“The battle of Actium was followed by the final conquest of Egypt. That conquest rounded and integrated the glorious empire; it was now circular as a shield, orbicular as the disk of a planet; the great Julian arch was now locked into the cohesion of granite by its last keystone. From that day forward,for three hundred years, there was silence in the world; no muttering was heard; no eye winked beneath the wing. Winds of hostility might still rave at intervals, but it was on the outside of the mighty empire, it was at a dreamlike distance; and, like the storms that beat against some monumental castle, ‘and at the doors and windows seem to call,’ they rather irritated and vivified the sense of security, than at all disturbed its luxurious lull.”
Contrast with this a passage from Emerson’s first prose work, “Nature,” wherein the poetic element is more conspicuous:—
“The poet, the orator, bred in the woods, whose senses have been nourished by their fair and appeasing changes, year after year, without design and without heed, shall not lose their lesson altogether, in the roar of cities or the broil of politics. Long hereafter, amidst agitation and terror in national councils,—in the hour of revolution,—these solemn images shall reappear in their morning lustre, as fit symbols and words of the thoughts which the passing events shall awaken. At the call of a noble sentiment, again the woods wave, the pines murmur, the river rolls and shines, and the cattle low upon the mountains, as he saw and heard them in his infancy. And with these forms, the spells of persuasion, the keys of power are put into his hands.”
Or this passage from Carlyle’s “French Revolution,” shall we call it eloquent prose or poetic prose?
“In this manner, however, has the Day bent downwards. Wearied mortals are creeping homefrom their field labors; the village artisan eats with relish his supper of herbs, or has strolled forth to the village street for a sweet mouthful of air and human news. Still summer eventide everywhere! The great sun hangs flaming on the uttermost northwest; for it is his longest day this year. The hilltops, rejoicing, will ere long be at their ruddiest, and blush good-night. The thrush in green dells, on long-shadowed leafy spray, pours gushing his glad serenade, to the babble of brooks grown audible; silence is stealing over the Earth.”
What noble eloquence in Tacitus! Indeed, eloquence was natural to the martial and world-subduing Roman; but his poetry is for the most part of a secondary order. It is often said of French poetry that it is more eloquent than poetic. Of English poetry the reverse is probably true, though of such a poet as Byron it seems to me that eloquence is the chief characteristic.
Byron never, to my notion, touches the deeper and finer poetic chords. He is witty, he is brilliant, he is eloquent, but is he ever truly poetical? He stirs the blood, he kindles the fancy, but does he ever diffuse through the soul the joy and the light of pure poetry? Goethe expressed almost unbounded admiration for Byron, yet admitted that he was too worldly-minded, and that a great deal of his poetry should have been fired off in Parliament in the shape of parliamentary speeches. Wordsworth, on the other hand, when he was not prosy and heavy, was poetical; he was never eloquent.
A fine sample of eloquence in poetry is Browning’s “How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix.” Of its kind there is nothing in the language to compare with it. One needs to read such a piece occasionally as a moral sanitary measure; it aerates his emotions as a cataract does a creek. Scott’s highest excellence as a poet is his eloquence. The same is true of Macaulay and of Campbell, though the latter’s “To the Rainbow” breathes the spirit of true poetry.
Among our own poets Halleck’s “Marco Bozzaris” thrills us with its fiery eloquence. Dr. Holmes’s “Old Ironsides” also is just what such a poem should be, just what the occasion called for, a rare piece of rhymed eloquence.
Eloquence is so good, so refreshing, it is such a noble and elevating excitement, that one would fain have more of it, even in poetry. It is too rare and precious a product to be valued lightly.
Here is a brief example of Byron’s eloquence:—
“There, where death’s brief pang was quickest.And the battle’s wreck lay thickest,Strewed beneath the advancing bannerOf the eagles’ burning crest,—There with thunder-clouds to fan herVictory beaming from her breast!While the broken line enlargingFell, or fled along the plain;—There be sureMuratwas charging!There he ne’er shall charge again!”
“There, where death’s brief pang was quickest.And the battle’s wreck lay thickest,Strewed beneath the advancing bannerOf the eagles’ burning crest,—There with thunder-clouds to fan herVictory beaming from her breast!While the broken line enlargingFell, or fled along the plain;—There be sureMuratwas charging!There he ne’er shall charge again!”
“There, where death’s brief pang was quickest.And the battle’s wreck lay thickest,Strewed beneath the advancing bannerOf the eagles’ burning crest,—There with thunder-clouds to fan herVictory beaming from her breast!While the broken line enlargingFell, or fled along the plain;—There be sureMuratwas charging!There he ne’er shall charge again!”
“There, where death’s brief pang was quickest.
And the battle’s wreck lay thickest,
Strewed beneath the advancing banner
Of the eagles’ burning crest,—
There with thunder-clouds to fan her
Victory beaming from her breast!
While the broken line enlarging
Fell, or fled along the plain;—
There be sureMuratwas charging!
There he ne’er shall charge again!”
This from Tennyson is of another order:—
“Thy voice is heard through rolling drumsThat beat to battle where he stands;Thy face across his fancy comes,And gives the battle to his hands:A moment, while the trumpets blow,He sees his brood about thy knee;The next, like fire, he meets the foe,And strikes him dead for thine and thee.”
“Thy voice is heard through rolling drumsThat beat to battle where he stands;Thy face across his fancy comes,And gives the battle to his hands:A moment, while the trumpets blow,He sees his brood about thy knee;The next, like fire, he meets the foe,And strikes him dead for thine and thee.”
“Thy voice is heard through rolling drumsThat beat to battle where he stands;Thy face across his fancy comes,And gives the battle to his hands:A moment, while the trumpets blow,He sees his brood about thy knee;The next, like fire, he meets the foe,And strikes him dead for thine and thee.”
“Thy voice is heard through rolling drums
That beat to battle where he stands;
Thy face across his fancy comes,
And gives the battle to his hands:
A moment, while the trumpets blow,
He sees his brood about thy knee;
The next, like fire, he meets the foe,
And strikes him dead for thine and thee.”
The chief value of all patriotic songs and poems, like Mrs. Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” or Mr. Stedman’s John Brown poem, or Randall’s “Maryland,” or Burns’s “Bannnockburn,” or Whitman’s “Beat! Beat! Drums,” is their impassioned eloquence. Patriotism, war, wrong, slavery, these are the inspirers of eloquence.
Of course no sharp line can be drawn between eloquence and poetry; they run together, they blend in all first-class poems; yet there is a wide difference between the two, and it is probably in the direction I have indicated. Power and mastery in either field are the most precious of human gifts.