ess that
truth, that is, to interpret the interpreter, which he can do only by
translating the poetry into prose, and the language of imagination and
emotion into that of philosophy, he destroys the poem in the process,
much as the botanist destroys the flower in analyzing it, or the musical
critic the composition in disentangling its interwoven melodies and
explaining the mature of its harmonic structure. The analysis, whether
of music, art, or poetry, must be followed by a synthesis, which, in the
nature of the case, can be accomplished only by the hearer or reader for
himself. All that I can do here is to illustrate this revelatory
character of poetry by some references to the poems which this volume
contains. I do not attempt to explain the meaning of these poems; that
is a task quite impossible. I only attempt to show that they have a
meaning, that beneath their beauty of form is a depth of truth which
philosophical statement in prose cannot interpret, but the essence of
which such statement may serve to suggest. I do not wish to expound the
truth of life which is contained in the poet's verse; I only wish to
show that the poet by his verse reveals a truth of life which the critic
cannot express, and that it is for this reason pre-eminently that such a
collection of poetry as this is deserving of the reader's study.

If for example the student turns to such a volume as Newman Smyth's
"Christian Ethics," he will find there a careful though condensed
discussion of the right and wrong of suicide. It is cool, deliberate,
philosophical. But it gives no slightest hint of the real state of the
man who is deliberating within himself whether he will commit suicide
or no; no hint of the real arguments that pass in shadow through his
mind:--the weariness of life which summons him to end all; the nameless,
indefinable dread of the mystery and darkness and night into which death
carries us, which makes him hesitate. If we would really understand the
mind of the suicide, not merely the mind of the philosopher coolly
debating suicide, we must turn to the poet.

"To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 't is