OUR BARDS.

"And when they list their lean and flashy songs,

Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw,"

He knew

Himself to sing and build the lofty rhyme."

MILTON."SKIP the poetry." Chum's eyes were weak, after the midyear grind, and I was reading the Crimson to him as he sat, with his back to the fire, gazing partly into vacancy, and partly at a photograph of one of Raphael's Madonnas, which adorned our modest study. We had read all about the grievances of the Memorial Hall victims which are almost as enlivening as the old plank-walk appeals; all the discussions intended to prove that a man who wears a clean shirt insults a man who does not, or (and to the latter opinion I rather incline) vice versa. We had read, too, of the woful condition of college morals and college men, who commit the heinous sin of wearing ulsters and smoking cigarettes, and whose moral character, as might be expected from an exterior so intensely vulgar, is flashy in the extreme, being chiefly made up of "impure thoughts," on what subjects we are not informed.

All these I had waded through, my chum giving, from time to time, a grunt of satisfaction or more frequently of mingled pity and disgust, when my eye fell upon a poem. "Shall I read you this?" I said. "O, skip the poetry!" was his answer. "But you might at least hear the title," said I. "Well, what is it," growled he. I said humbly, "Lines to a Fading Rose"; it begins,

"Thou drooping spirit of the dying year."

"O - !" cried he, and I had not the heart to blame him.

Brother poets, if you must write "Lines to a Harebell," or "On a Withered Daisy," do so by all means, but don't print them, unless you have more confidence in your genius than the world is likely to have; or at least do not build the lofty rhyme to describe your meditations on a fly.

Though I had no heart to blame my chum in the concrete instance, I did deliver him a lecture on the abstract scorn of poetry, that is so prevalent among us, and a few words from this it is my purpose to indite here.

"That every one is equally gifted with the poetic faculty, whether for composition or appreciation," I said (for I am a little given to being sententious at times, though from what professor I learned it, it would be impolite and impolitic to say), "I do not pretend, but certainly all possess it in some degree." Here I drew a long breath, and he sighed.

"But you may say, if you wish to read poetry, you can find better in the works of the great poets. Of course that is, in one way, true. The poetry of Shelley or Wordsworth is better, judged by the absolute standard, than that of our college papers; but as educators of college taste they may be inferior, since the poetry of our classmates is more superficial and more easily understood than the work of those who have been breathing the atmosphere of poetry all their lives." Chum repeated his previous remark.

"As educators, then, we should regard our college poetry as of value, and encourage, by a pardoning appreciation, the production of the best. As for humorous poetry and vers de societe, there is enough of it already, and it has readers in plenty."

My chum at this point said, "O, let up!" So I followed the example of Emmanuel Kant (r. note-books Phil. II.) "and then dried up."

Still I cannot but feel that a large part of the lack of interest is caused by the unfortunate choice of subjects. Undoubtedly, to the fledgling's eye, there is something very picturesque and poetic in a fading daisy, but as long as your readers refuse to see it, you had better keep your lucubration in your portfolio.

Another thing which accounts for the unpopularity of much of our poetry is its very affected vocabulary. About one half the sonnets begin with "O" or "Thou," and it is a chance if the author can get through without using "lush," or mentioning the nightingale; a bird rarely seen or heard, and so very useful, since imagination fills up the blank as the context requires.* What "lush" means it would be hard to say, and as for the average "O," it reminds one of the "indeed" or our ante-collegiate (?) days. If you cannot write poetry naturally, you had better not write it at all. But while I have been making these reflections, my chum has gone to sleep, and so I fear, reader, have you.

H. W. W.

* To show the clear idea of the nightingale which the poets had, it is interesting to remark that Byron speaks (Parasina) of the "nightingale's high note," and Keats (Ode to the Nightingale), of "thy plaintive anthem."