[The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper by Martin Farquhar Tupper]@TWC D-Link bookThe Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper CHAPTER XIX 84/223
So did [_epoiese_] Milton; and so did not---- Well, I myself, if you will.
Yet, in fact, there are fifty other kinds of poetries, beside the poetry of words: as the poetry of life--affection, honour, and hope, and generosity; the poetry of beauty--never mind what features decorate the Dulcinea, for this species of poetry is felt and seen almost only in first love; the poetry of motion, as first-rates majestically sailing, furiously scudding waves, bending corn-fields, and, briefly, all things moveable but railway-trains; the poetry of rest, as pyramids, a tropical calm, an arctic winter, and generally all things quiescent but a slumbering alderman; the poetry of music, heard oftener in a country milkmaid's evening song, than in many a concert-room; the poetry of elegance, more natural to weeping willows, unbroken colts, flames, swans, ivy-clad arches, greyhounds, yea, to young donkeys, than to those _pirouette_-ing and _very_ active _danseuses_ of the opera; the poetry of nature, as mountains, waterfalls, storms, summer evenings, and all manner of landscapes, except Holland and Siberia; the poetry of art, acqueducts, minarets, Raphael's colouring, and Poussin's intricate designs; the poetry of ugliness, well seen in monkeys and Skye terriers; and the poetry of awkwardness, whereof the brightest example is Mr. trans-Atlantic Rice.
And, verily, many other poetries there be, as of impudence (for which consult the experience of swindlers); of prose, (for which see Addison); of energy, of sleep, of battle and of peace: for it is an easy-seeming artfulness, the most fascinating manner of doing as of saying, complication simplified, and every thing effected to its bravest advantage.
Poetry wants a champion in these days, who will save her from her friends: O, namby-pamby "lovers of the Nine!" your innumerous dull lyrics--ay, and mine--your unnatural heroics--I too have sinned thus--your up-hill sonnets--that labour of folly have I known as well--in brief, your misnamed poetry, hath done grievous damage to the cause you toil for.
Yet I would avow thus much, for I believe it: as an average, we have beaten our ancestors; seldom can we take up a paper or a periodical which does not show us verses worthy of great names; the age is full of highly respectable, if not superlative poetry; and truly may we consider that the very abundance of good versification has lowered the price of poets, and therefore, in this marketing world, has robbed them of proper estimation.
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