Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/270

cannot analyse, and in which neither the desire of money nor the latent hope of fame have the chiefest part. He sings simply because he must sing. He does not labour at it, piecing his thoughts and words together with the tardy and tame patience of a worker in mosaics, for though such exact execution be admirable in mosaic-work, it is dull and lifeless in poetry. Colour, fire, music, passion, and intense, glowing vitality are the heritage of the Great Poet; and when the torrent of unpremeditated love-song, battle-chant, dirge and prophecy pours from his lips, the tired world slackens its pace to listen, and listening, silently crowns him Laureate in its heart of hearts, regardless of Prime Minister or Court Chamberlain. But the Little Poet is not able so to win attention; he cannot sing thus "wildly well" because he lacks original voice. He can only trim a sorry pipe of reed and play weak echoes thereon; derivative twists of thought and borrowed fancies caught up from the greater songs already ringing through the centuries. And when he first begins piping in this lilliputian fashion he is generally very miserable. He pipes "for pence; Ay me, how few!" Nobody listens; people are too much engrossed with their own concerns to care about echoes. Their attention can only be secured by singing them new songs that will stir their pulses to new delights. The too-tootling of the Little Poet, therefore, would never be noticed at all, even by way of derision, unless he went down on all-fours and begged somebody to "discover" him. The "discoverer" in most cases is a Superannuated-literary-gentleman, who has tried his own hand