It is easy to comprehend why the father of American song should be held in honor by poets as different as Richard Henry Stoddard and Walt Whitman. These men have possessed one quality in common. Stoddard's random and lighter lyrics are familiar to magazine readers, with whom the larger efforts of a poet are not greatly in demand. But I commend those who care for high and lasting qualities to an acquaintance with his blank verse, and with sustained lyrics like the odes on Shakspere and Bryant and Washington, which resemble his blank verse both in artistic perfection and in imagination excelled by no contemporary poet. Whitman's genius is prodigal and often so elemental, whether dwelling upon his types of the American people, or upon nature animate and inanimate in his New World, or upon mysteries of science and the future, that it at times moves one to forego, as passing and inessential, any demur to his matter or manner. There is no gainsaying the power of his imagination — a faculty which he indulged, having certainly carried out that early determination to loaf, and invite his soul. His highest mood is even more than elemental; it is cosmic. In almost the latest poem of this old bard, addressed "To the Sunset Breeze" (one fancies him sitting, like Borrow's blind gipsy, where he can feel the wind from the heath), he thus expressed it: The souls of the Hebrew bards, inheritors of northern lakes; feel the sky, the prairies vast - I feel the mighty I feel the ocean and the forest- somehow I feel the globe itself swift-swimming in space. Lanier is another of the American poets distinguished by imaginative genius. In his case this became more and more impressible by the sense of elemental nature, and perhaps more subtly alert to the infinite variety within the unities of her primary forms. Mrs. Stoddard's poetry, as yet uncollected, is imaginative and original, the utterance of moods that are only too infrequent. The same may be said of a few poems by Dr. Parsons, from whom we have that finest of American lyrics, the lines "On a Bust of Dante." There is a nobly elemental strain in Taylor's "Prince Deukalion" and "The Masque of the Gods." I could name several of our younger poets, men and women, and a number of their English compeers, whose work displays imaginative qualities, were it not beyond my province. But many of the newcomers-relatively more, perhaps, than in former divisions of this century-seem restricted to the neat-trimmed playgrounds of fancy and device; they deck themselves like pages, rarely venturing from the palace close into the stately Forest of Dreams. If one should stray down a gloaming vista, and be aided by the powers therein to chance for once upon some fine con ception, I fancy him recoiling from his own imagining as from the shadow of a lion. HERE, then, after the merest glimpse of its aureole, we turn away from the creative imagination: a spirit that attends the poet unbidden, if at all, and compensates him for neglect and sorrow by giving him the freedom of a clime not recked of by the proud and mighty, and a spiritual wealth" beyond the dreams of avarice." Not all the armor and curios and drapery of a Sybaritic studio can make a painter; no esthetic mummery, no mastery of graceful rhyme and measure, can of themselves furnish forth a poet. Go rather to Barbizon, and see what pathetic truth and beauty dwell within the humble rooms of Millet's cottage; go to Ayr, and find the muse's darling beneath a strawthatched roof; think what feudal glories came to Chatterton in his garret, what thoughts of fair marble shapes, of casements" innumerable of stains and splendid dyes," lighted up for Keats his borough lodgings. Doré was asked, at the flood-tide of his good fortune, why he did not buy or build a château. "Let my patrons do that," he said. "Why should I, who have no need of it? My château is here, behind my forehead." He who owns the wings of imagination shudders on no height; he is above fate and chance. Its power of vision makes him greater still, for he sees and illuminates everyday life and common things. Its creative gift is divine; and I can well believe the story told of the greatest and still living Victorian poet, that once, in his college days, he looked deep and earnestly into the subaqueous life of a stream near Cambridge, and was heard to say, "What an imagination God has!" Certainly without it was not anything made that was made, either by the Creator, or by those created in his likeness. I say "created," but there are times when we think upon the amazing beauty, the complexity, the power and endurance, of the works of human hands-such as, for example, some of the latest architectural decorations illuminated by the electric light with splendor never conceived of even by an ancestral rhapsodist in his dreams of the New Jerusalem-there are moments when results of this sort, suggesting the greater possible results of future artistic and scientific effort, give the theory of divinity as absolutely immanent in man a proud significance. We then comprehend the full purport of the Genesitic record"Ye shall be as gods." The words of the Psalmist have a startling verity-"I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the Most High." We remember that one who declared himself the direct offspring and very portion of the Unknown Power, and in evidence stood. upon his works alone, repeated these wordsby inference recognizing a share of Deity within each child of earth. The share allotted to such a mold as Shakspere's evoked Hartley Coleridge's declaration: The soul of man is larger than the sky, So in the compass of the single mind But what was the old notion of the act of divine creation? That which reduced divinity to the sprite of folk-lore, who by a word, a spell, or the wave of a wand, evoked a city, a person, an army, out of the void. The Deity whom we adore in our generation has taken us into his workshop. We see that he creates, as we construct, slowly and patiently, through ages and by evolution, one step leading to the the artist, is creative, he becomes a sharer of next. I reassert, then, that " as far as the poet, the divine imagination and power, and even of the divine responsibility." And I now find this assertion so well supported, that I cannot forbear quoting from a "Midsummer Meditation" in a recent volume of American poetry: Brave conqueror of dull mortality! WE have seen that with the poet imagination is the essential key to expression. The other thing of most worth is that which moves him to expression, the passion of his heart and soul. I close, therefore, by saying that without either of these elements we can have poetry which may seem to you tender, animating, enjoyable, and of value in its way, but without imagination there can be no poetry which is great. Possibly we can have great poetry which is devoid of passion, but great only through its tranquilizing power, through tones that calm and strengthen, yet do not exalt and thrill. Such is not the poetry which stirs one to make an avowal like Sir Philip Sidney's: I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas, that I found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet. Edmund Clarence Stedman. OUT OF POMPEII. The body of a young girl was found in Pompeii, lying face downward, with her head resting upon her arms, perhaps asleep; the scoria of the volcano had preserved a perfect mold of her form. She was clad in a single garment. No more beautiful form was ever imagined by a sculptor. PIONEER PACKHORSES IN ALASKA. WITH PICTURES FROM SKETCHES AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR. I. THE ADVANCE. 62 HE continent of Alaska, roughly speaking 2000 miles in length and 1700 miles in width, purchased in 1867 by the United States Government from Russia for $7,200, 000, offers to the traveler a vast, almost unknown area. Within its limits nature presents contrasting scenes; its northern and western ice-fields harbor the polar bear and the walrus, and the tiny humming-bird nests in its southern forests. Its surf-beaten coast-line has long ago been charted, and its navigable waters have been explored; but the great interior, unapproached by waterways, is almost unknown. A journey which I made in central Alaska in 1890, as a member of an exploring expedition, assured me beyond doubt that defective transport was the sole reason for the undeveloped and unexplored state of the land. The Indian carrier was the only means of transportation; he controlled the situation, and com manded most exorbitant pay. Moreover, his arrogance, inconsistency, cunning, and general unreliability are ever on the alert to thwart the white man. No matter how important your mission, your Indian carriers, though they have duly contracted to accompany you, will delay your departure till it suits their convenience, and any exhibition of impatience on your part will only remind them of your utter dependence upon them; and then intrigue for increase of pay will at once begin. When en route they will prolong the journey by camping on the trail for two or three weeks, tempted by good hunting or fishing. In a land where the open season is so short, and the ways are so long, such delay is a tremendous drawback. Often the Indians will carry their loads some part of the way agreed upon, then demand an extravagant increase of pay or a goodly share of the white man's stores, and, failing to get either, will fling down their packs and return to their village, leaving their white employer helplessly stranded. The expense of Indian labor, therefore, with its attendant inconvenience and uncertainty, renders a long overland journey impossible. An Indian cannot be hired at less than two dollars a day, which, however, is a mere trifle compared to the obligation of feeding him. Your carriers will start with loads weighing from 80 to 90 pounds, and will eat about three pounds dead-weight each day per man, so that at the end of the month a point will have been reached in the interior, and all your stores consumed by the men carrying them, and for this unusual privilege the traveler has still to pay sixty dollars a month for each man's services. When traveling on his own account, the Indian lives sparingly on dried salmon, but when employed by a white man his appetite at once assumes boaconstrictor proportions. Game is so scarce that it cannot be relied on to afford much relief to the constant drain on your provisions. Occasionally an opportunity will present itself by which you can bag a bear or a mountain-goat, a very pleasant addition to your larder, and an acceptable change from the monotonous beanand-bacon fare; but you cannot depend on the rifle for food; without a plentiful supply of provisions, misery and hunger will drive you unceremoniously from your working-ground. The only way to test the resources and possibilities of Alaska is by making thorough research through every part of the land, and conducting your investigations entirely independent of native report either favorable or discouraging. I determined to revisit Alaska in the spring of 1891, and to endeavor to make a journey to the far interior with packhorses. From what he had already seen of the land, John Dalton, who accompanied me on the previous journey, was equally convinced with myself of the feasibility of such an undertaking. As I was about to make what I thought to be rather an important experiment, I ventured to ask some slight assistance from the geographical departments of the United States and Canadian governments, such as the loan of a few instruments, which otherwise would lie idle in some Government office, in return for which privilege I promised a rough map of an enormous area of unknown land; but my suggestions failed to obtain a favorable hearing. Failing to awaken interest in my experiment through different channels, I decided to go at my own expense. Dalton had agreed to aid me; in fact, without the promise of his valuable services I should have hesitated to make the attempt. An interesting part of this vast unexplored interior lies between the Yukon River and Mt. St. Elias on the southeast coast of Alaska. Gold has been discovered everywhere on the outskirts, warranting the supposition that the same precious metal exists in the interior. All the streams heading from this quarter show specimens of mineral along their shores, a fact which created in our minds the reasonable hope that we might strike the supply at its source. In Alaskan expeditions it is essential that the party of whites be as small as possible. Each additional man adds to the need of transport, and besides, a large body of whites is liable to arouse the suspicions of the natives and to create trouble. So Dalton and I decided to make the venture alone. He was a most desirable partner, having excellent judgment, cool and deliberate in time of danger, and possessed of great_tact in dealing with Indians. He thoroughly understood horses, was as good as any Indian in a cottonwood dugout or skin canoe, and as a camp cook I never met his equal. We equipped ourselves at Seattle with four short, chunky horses weighing about nine hundred pounds each, supplied ourselves with the requisite pack-saddles and harness, stores and ammunition, then embarked on board a coast steamer, and sailed north from Puget Sound, through the thousand miles of inland seas, to Alaska. We disembarked at Pyramid Harbor, near the mouth of the Chilkat River, which is by far the most convenient point from which to start for the interior. No horses had ever been taken into the country, and old miners, traders, and prospectors openly pitied our ignorance in imagining the possibility of taking pack-animals over the coast-range. The Indians ridiculed the idea of such an experiment; they told us of the deep, swift streams flowing across our path, the rocky paths so steep that the Indian hunter could climb in safety only by creeping on his hands and knees. Finding that their discouraging reports failed to influence us, the Chilkat Indians, foreseeing that our venture, if successful, would greatly injure their interests by establishing a dangerous competition against their present monopoly, held meetings on the subject, and rumor reached us that our further advance would be resisted. However, when we were ready, we saddled up, buckled on |
