POETRY; IS IT OUT OF DATE?

BY BISHOP ORSON F. WHITNEY, OF SALT LAKE CITY.

Is poetry out of date? An interesting query-answered in the affirmative by the author of the following paragraph, clipped from a Chicago paper, The Welfare, some time since, and sent by a friend to the present writer, with the request that he reply to it through one of the public prints:

POETRY IS OUT OF DATE.

BY PROFESSOR OSCAR L. TRIGGS OF CHICAGO.

There is no great thought, no worthy emotion, which may not be better expressed in prose than in verse to-day. Verse was the primitive expression of man's thought. Rhythm was the characteristic of his first crude literary efforts. Homer, Dante and Shakespeare cast their thoughts and emotions in verse because the metrical form was the only adequate method of expression invented in their day. English prose has been developed to the point, however, where it is a finer, more subtle instrument of wider scope than English verse, and poetry's chief excuse for being has been destroyed.

Literary truth is truth to nature. Poetry is artificial and bears the deadly brand of insincerity in its form. The passing of the verse form is strikingly shown by the grip which Kipling has on the English speaking world. His poetry is the nearest approximation to ideal prose which I know, and I think his truth is the secret of his grip. Walt Whitman is a great literary power for the same reason. He evolved a style of verse which defied convention and sacrificed form to truth and effect. I would not decry the great singers of the centuries, but the poets of the twentieth century will follow Ruskin, Newman and Pater instead of Milton, Wordsworth or Keats.

The writer of the foregoing, in his use of the term poetry, means, of course, verse, metrical composition, and not the spirit of poesy, which inspires great thoughts and worthy emotions, which in turn clothe themselves in poetic forms and are called poetry. But had he contended that that spirit is out of date, as well as the verse forms in which it is generally clothed, he would have been quite as

near the truth, in my opinion, as he is in the argument advanced. The poetic spirit and the practical spirit are not necessarily foes, implacable, irreconcilable; but it is a fact, nevertheless, that the present perverted operations of those spirits, due to the sordid inclinations of a material age, and to the imperfect conceptions formed on both sides of the question, as to the true mission and purpose of such agencies in the world, are essentially antagonistic to each other. Poetry, art, and religion, are popularly supposed to represent the ideal exclusively-something impractical and of no particular use, of secondary importance at best; while commerce, science, politics, and such like factors and forces, represent the practical or real. Being "of the earth earthy," appealing primarily to the stomach and the pocket (and to these alone in the minds of the shallow) the latter are more readily appreciated, are thought to be more useful, and are consequently more popular with the masses and with many of the classes of mankind. Commerce and politics "hold the fort," they are of to-day; while poetry and religion are deemed to be of yesterday. My belief, however, is that they are not only of yesterday, but of to-day and forever. Nor would I place politics, commerce, or even war outside the pale of things useful in bringing about the grand result sought by the great and all-wise Engineer whose omnipotent, overruling hand rests upon the throttle-valve of the universe. Poets and financiers, ideologists and men of affairs, must take God into account, must know something of him and his purposes, before they can fully appreciate their gifts or put them to the best and wisest use; and the same may be said of those who deem it their province and privilege to pass judgment upon such things.

But let us meet Professor Triggs upon his own ground. He is a gentleman of learning and culture, a scholar and critic of repute. His opinions are therefore entitled to respect, howsoever we may disagree with them. He has lately shocked a large portion of the religious world by declaring that the time-honored hymns of Watts and Wesley are mere doggerel verse, and has made other startling suggestions at war with conventional and popular ideas and notions regarding poetry. I may remark in passing that I rather suspect he is more than half way right regarding some of the hymns he criticises so severely.

Hymns may be poems, however, even some of the hymns of Watts and Wesley; and certainly those of Cowper, Addison and Montgomery merit the distinction. The religious spirit they breathe is not fatal to such a claim, except in minds agnostic or ultraunitarian. The same is true of the hymns of the Latter-day Saints, many of which, while they cannot be called high class poetry, have served the noblest and most useful purposes. "I am not highly educated," said John B. Gough, the famous temperance orator, to an American scholar-Wendell Phillips, I believe, "That is evident from your speech," was the reply; "but," added the mental giant, "the world is perhaps all the better for that." Hymns-which are prayers set to song-have saved souls, or ministered to that end. I doubt that Homer's Iliad or Shakespeare's plays-precious as they are have done as much in that direction.

But to the theme proper. The Professor asserts that there is no great thought, no worthy emotion, which may not be better expressed in prose than in verse. This I deny. I do not believe that prose, however perfect, is a better medium of expression than poetry for the higher thoughts and emotions. On the contrary, I am convinced that it is the inadequacy of prose to express some thoughts and emotions, that renders poetry essential; and that its "chief excuse for being" has not been destroyed by the development of English prose to its present state of perfection.

As well might it be contended that the manufacture of business suits by some merchant tailor standing at the head of his craft, had been perfected to that degree that the full-dress suit, the army or navy uniform, the stage or court costume, or the sacerdotal robe, was no longer essential-was obsolete and out of date, having been superceded by the everyday apparel of the man of affairs. This would be democracy-verbal democracy with a vengeance equal to the wholesale abolition of titles proposed by the revered Author of the Declaration.

Language is the clothing of thought, the apparel of ideas, and different suits of dress are no more desirable or necessary to men and women in society, in kitchen, parlor, cabinet, field or workshop, than are varied styles of expression to their diversified thoughts and feelings. The chit-chat of the street, the talk of the shop, though it often finds its way into the drawing-room, is just