Then you find the
advantages of knowing a great deal of poetry. I would not give a rush
for a man who merely pores over his poets in order to make notes or
comments on them; you ought to have them as beloved companions to be
near you night and day, to take up the parable when your own independent
thought is hazy with delight or even with sorrow. As you tramp along the
whistling stretches amid the blaze of the ragworts and the tender
passing glances of the wild veronica, you can take in all their
loveliness with the eye, while the brain goes on adding to your pleasure
by recalling the music of the poets. Perhaps you fall into step with the
quiver and beat of our British Homer's rushing rhymes, and Marmion
thunders over the brown hills of the Border, or Clara lingers where
mingles war's rattle with groans of the dying. Perhaps the wilful brain
persists in crooning over the "Belle Dame Sans Merci;" your mood
flutters and changes with every minute, and you derive equal
satisfaction from the organ-roll of Milton or the silvery flageolet
tones of Thomas Moore. If culture consists in learning the grammar an
etymologies of a poet's song, then no cultured man will ever get any
pleasure from poetry while he is on a walking tour; but, if you absorb
your poets into your being, you have spells of rare and unexpected
delight.
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