But the point to bear in mind is, the
whole question of the permanence of poetry is largely in the hands
of chance. If you are interested to observe the case of some really
first-class poetry which has been struggling for recognition and yet
shows, so far, no sign of breaking through into the clear light of
lasting love and remembrance, look at the poems of James Elroy
Flecker.
Generally speaking, one law is plain: that it is not until the poet
himself and all who knew him are dead, and his lines speak only with
the naked and impersonal appeal of ink, that his value to the race
as a permanent pleasure can be justly appraised.
There is one more point that perhaps is worth making. It is
significant of human experience that the race instinctively demands,
in most of the poetry that it cares to take along with it as
permanent baggage, a certain honourable sobriety of mood. Consider
Mr. Burton E. Stevenson's great "Home Book of Verse," that
magnificent anthology which may be taken as fairly indicative of
general taste in these matters. In nearly 4,000 pages of poetry only
three or four hundred are cynical or satirical in temper. Humanity
as a whole likes to make the best of a bad job: it grins somewhat
ruefully at the bitter and the sardonic; but when it is packing its
trunk for the next generation it finds most room for those poets who
have somehow contrived to find beauty and not mockery in the inner
sanctities of human life and passion.
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