Aurline Osmond By Burnham The Art of Poetry by Blair Burton ARTICLE Poetry is not a product of modern civilizations. Primitive man unconsciously turned to poetic expression for many of his early thoughts and ideals. His poetry was, it is true, very different from that we have today. Despite this fact, however, the majority of things he did began or ended in poetry. In the beginning poetry and music were seldom separated. Ordinary words were scarcely sufficient for the primitive emotions highly developed civilizations like the Greek almost all the poetry had a sort of chanted tune that was composed by the poet himself. By and by the two began to be separated and now poetry usually stands by itself. But in good poetry the reader often hears in his head the echo of the tune that might be there. As time went on the early poets began to make their verses more regular and musical than the first chants and songs had been. Poetry began to be beautiful. It also became more useful and achieved for its self a place in the hearts of all men. The mysterious delight that was experienced from the sound of verse has made it prized of all peoples. The Greeks did much for the development of our present poetry. They told of their life and the beauty about them with sparkling spirit and a harmony of word that has endured till the present. They looked upon poetry as such a part of their lives that their early dramas were fashioned from its beauty. The Romans with infinite charm and variety kept the poetic spirit alive when the glory of Greece began to fade. Horace and Virgil have preserved the richness and power of the thoughts of their nation. Not only have their poems been read by many peoples, but also have they proved inspiration to most of the "sweet singers" of verse which were to follow them. Dante, Chaucer, Milton, Shakespeare, Tennyson realized the greatness of these Latin poets. After the glorious ages of civilization dominated by Greece and Rome the next great poetry was written by the rugged conquerors of these nations. By gradual development the poetry of Dante, Petrarch, Chaucer, and others took its place among the great poems of history. In England the decendants of the early Angles and Saxons excelled in poetic expression during the "golden" age of Elizabeth. The ballad makers had sustained the poetic spirit of Chaucer until Englishmen were ready for the finished poetry. The giants of English poetry, Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton and later Wordsworth, Byron, Keats, Shelley, Browning, and Tennyson firmly established England as a leader in poetic literature. Though, most of them differed greatly in style and subject matter they nearly all achieved the heights of blended harmony and feeling in passages of intense beauty. Wherever poets are spoken of their names will rank among the highest. They lifted a noble art to greater significance and gave a new impulse to the music of poetry. In America the poetic spirit felt among the Indian peoples was enhanced with the coming of European civilization. Edgar Allen Poe brought to poetry intensity of expression in a haunting mood. Walt Whitman "sang of Democracy." He made the world realize that something magnificent was taking place here amid the tragedies and cruelties of this life. "Whitman made a new poetic world, teaching that life was just beginning for anyone who was brave enough to live it." While his poetry was not the greatest, Whitman has been one of the strongest poetic forces of our modern age. Matthew Arnold, Swinburne, Sandburg, Lindsay, Frost, Master, Robinson, and Markham also wrote of the new America visioned by Whitman. They searched for truth and poetry in new things; factories, trains, cities, war, parades, motor cars, and side streets. And so we find poetry today, a reflection of our lives just as surely as the poetry of primitive peoples was an expression of their lives. In some ways poetry has lost much of its original function. No longer does it hold sole office as philosopher and story teller. It is certain, however, that poetry has gained in many respects. Nothing thus far has ever been able to take its place. Despite the hurry and rush of our modern civilization, there are many people who find time for the quiet contemplation of poetic beauty. The future of poetry is indeed uncertain. There are those who look for its decadence as a form of expression and those who look for a new greatness in verse. Regardless of personal opinions, poetry will go on in some form or another. In the past it has proved itself as a mirror of the soul of man; it has grown with man from, the earliest times as a distinct part of his expression. The fact that poetry developed more or less independently in many different nations shows that it was born and shall live with men. Page 17