Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/276

Log-rollers. He is not "made"; he forms part of the country's blood and life; he chants the national thought in haunting rhythm as did the prophet bards of old; he, careless of "pence," praise or fame, does so mix himself with his land's history, that he becomes, as it were the very voice of the age in which he lives, and the Superannuated may ignore him as he will, he cannot get him out of the nation's heart when he has once got in. But of the feeble, absurdly conceited tribe of Little Poets who come jostling one upon another nowadays in such a puling crowd, piping out their wretchedly small personalities in versed pessimism or coarse metaphor,—men "made" by the Tavern-publisher and the Superannuated Failure;—we have had enough of these, and more than enough. Too much good paper, good ink and good binding are wasted on their totally undesired productions. Life with us now is lived at too hard and too difficult a pace for any one to need poetry that is only verse. Hearts break every day in the truest sense of that sentimental phrase; brains reel into insanity and the darkness of suicide; and it is no Little Poet's personal pangs about "pence" and such trifles, that can, like David's harp of old, soothe or dismiss the dark spirit brooding over the latter-day Saul. It is the Great Poet we care for, whose singing-soul mystically comprehends our unuttered thoughts of love or glory; who chants not only his pains, but ours; not his joy, so much as the whole world's joy. Such a man needs no "discoverer" to prove his existence; he is self-evident. When we grow so purblind as to need a still blinder Mole to point us out the