The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 - National Spirit by Various
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page 7 of 536 (01%)
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him read mainly for the senses rather than for the mind, getting the
reward in the quickening of life through the throbbing rhythms; then the metrical system of poetry will become as real to him as the rhythmic movements of the planets are to an astronomer. There is no other way to get a feeling for the pulsations of poetry than through this intimate acquaintance. Without this, months of reading of amphibrachs and trochees and dactyls will not avail. It should be read aloud as much as possible to make the swing of its verses perfectly clear. When it sings to us as we read, it has begun to teach the message of its rhythms. Thus far the text-books have been pleasant companions, even when unable to give as much aid to the student as he could wish; but the fact will come to him at length that there is something more in poetry than the hand-books permit him to consider. These books deal with the forms, and most of them with the forms only. They analyze the methods, work out the metre, show how the parts are woven together, explain how the chords produce the harmonies. But just in proportion as the student becomes learned in these rhythms, and can distinguish minute or subtle variations of metrical structure, does he realize that this study teaches not its own use and that there is something beyond which must be won by his own observation. He finds in his search for rhythmical perfection that there are poems which make little appeal to his senses, whose lines do not sing themselves through his day-dreams, which yet affect his imagination even more powerfully than the musical strains thrilled his senses. He finds that there is much more in poetry than its rhymes and jingles, that there is a rhythm greater than that of the senses. In its more complex forms poetry is rhythm of thought, leading the mind to find relations which prose may describe, but which poetry alone can recreate. There is such a thing as a prose |
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