Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By Langdon ElwynMitchell

1476 From “To a Writer of the Day”

COULD but this be brought

Into your ken,—that the technique is thought!

Escape from “Style,” the notion men can use

Words without thoughts,—so wrench and so abuse

The innocent language to their ends that they

Will seem to be respectful, honest, gay,

Grave, or what else—and all the glorious while

The authors’ selves sit with the wise and smile:

“’T is but a trick, ’t is words, it is a style!”

Your technique, then, is thought, just as I say.

And if you ’ll write a poem, there ’s no way

But first to think it clearly; pin your mind

Upon your thought; fasten it there, and bind

The thought into your heart: when your veins burn and flow

With love or hate, the thoughts to music go,

Melt into music, and pour fully out

In a rich flood;—but to take thought about

The “music” of your words, ’t is matter quite

Beyond your conscious power! For rhymes, they ’re right

Or wrong according as they hear, not look

When printed by a printer in a book!

And their “correctness” may be measured best,

And indeed only, by a certain test:

That, namely, for rebellions,—which are so

Until they have succeeded, when they go

By quite another name. Forget not, too,

That every English poet known to you,

That is to say all of them, rhymed just as

The spirit took them and their pleasure was,

And, masters that they were, rhymed “falsely,” so

As now no poetaster dares to do!

So then, at last, let me awake this sleep

And languor of yourself: it is too deep,

And ’t is too long!

Oh, I would have you look

With judgment on your life, and not to brook

The less in art, as not in truth;—forgive

Much in you now I can, never that you less live!

I may put by whatever choice of themes,

But not this air of being by rich dreams

Roofed over, and floored under, and walled in.

As Eastern princes in a palanquin

Luxuriously ride, by eunuchs round

Held and supported, lifted from the ground,

And softly borne,—so you, on the mild shoulders,

Effeminate, of dreams!—Your spirit moulders;

The freshness of your soul withers away

As roses do that cannot find the day.

Oh, free yourself!—take up your life and share

The splendor of this day, the world’s great air,

And this new land’s delight,—this land that we

Adore, this people, this great liberty

Of nations in new birth,—a happy shower

Of golden States,—a many-blossomed flower!—

Now grown a Commonwealth, whose strength and state

And health are dangerous to all that hate

Freedom, and fatal to all those who’d be

Sunk in the dark of Time’s abysmal sea,

Safe anchored in the past—safe dead!—that none

Might longer make them fear a change beneath the sun,

To fright them with new good.—But oh, to those

Whose blood within them leaps and laughs and flows;

To all who proudly hope; to all who fain

With their right hands and with their heart and brain

Would throne the right, and make the good to reign;

To all who’d lift man up, and who, heart-free,

Haste toward the light,—this Land and State should be

Dear as their life!—And to her sons should she

Be born again in love, since with her noblest blood

And her right hand of youth she smote the brood

Of her own loins, nested in servitude,

Shadowing the world’s detraction with fair peace.

Dear mother of her sons, whose wealth is these;

Her more than gold, their valor, mercy, truth;

Her mighty age, immortal in their youth:—

Dear light of hope, oh, needs she not to be

Forever saved into new liberty?

The fallen blood of martyrs is in vain

If ours be not as free to fall again!

But her salvation is a rigorous task,

Eternally accomplishing.—I ask

You, therefore, as one owing more than most

To her, who is your happiness and boast,

That you cast from you all that will not wake

Men’s hearts from sensual sleep:—for her great sake

Put by the velvet touch, the easy grace,

The fingers dreaming on the lyre, the face

Forgetful, listening to light melodies;

Cease thou thy toying with the hours, and cease

This riot of thy youth, this wantoning

With all the sap and spirit of thy Spring.

Not twice that vendure’s given thee; the Tree

Of Life not twice shall blossom; and to be

Young, ’t is to be in heaven, ’t is to be

Full of ambition, filled with hot desire,

Pregnant with life, and steeped in such a fire

AS sets a world in hope!—Oh, could I say

That which I would, you could not say me nay.

But let your country plead with you; give heed

To her dumb call; sow the eternal seed

Of Truth, and Righteousness, and Love;—though you

Shall be, as poets should, known to but few,

Yet your reward is great: it is to be

Sown in the hearts of men, to make men free;

And in your thoughts to be your land’s firm stay,

And her salvation in a falling day,

More than dread cannon, than bright thousands more:

For thoughts, like angels, wage eternal war.