to state my firm belief that poetry should
not try to teach, that it should exist simply because it is a created
beauty, even if sometimes the beauty of a gothic grotesque. We do not
ask the trees to teach us moral lessons, and only the Salvation Army
feels it necessary to pin texts upon them. We know that these texts are
ridiculous, but many of us do not yet see that to write an obvious moral
all over a work of art, picture, statue, or poem, is not only
ridiculous, but timid and vulgar. We distrust a beauty we only half
understand, and rush in with our impertinent suggestions. How far we
are from "admitting the Universe"! The Universe, which flings down its
continents and seas, and leaves them without comment. Art is as much a
function of the Universe as an Equinoctial gale, or the Law of
Gravitation; and we insist upon considering it merely a little
scroll-work, of no great importance unless it be studded with nails
from which pretty and uplifting sentiments may be hung!

For the purely technical side I must state my immense debt to the
French, and perhaps above all to the, so-called, Parnassian School,
although some of the writers who have influenced me most do not belong
to it. High-minded and untiring workmen, they have spared no pains to
produce a poetry finer than that of any other country in our time.
Poetry so full of beauty and feeling, that the study of it is at once an
inspiration and a despair to the artist. The Anglo-Saxon of our day has
a tendency to think that a fine idea excuses slovenly workmanship. These
clear-eyed Frenchmen are a reproof to our self-satisfied laziness.
Before the works of Parnassians like Leconte de Lisle, and Jose-Maria de
Heredia, or those of Henri de Regnier, Albert Samain, Francis Jammes,
Remy de Gourmont, and Paul Fort, of the more modern school, we stand
rebuked. Indeed--"They order this matter better in France."

It is because in France, to-day, poetry is so living and vigorous a
thing, that so many metrical experiments come from there. Only a
vigorous tree has the vitality to put forth new branches. The poet with
originality and power is always seeking to give his readers the same
poignant feeling which he has himself. To do this he must constantly
find new and striking images, delightful and unexpected forms. Take the
word "daybreak", for instance. What a remarkable picture it must once
have conjured up! The great, round sun, like the yolk of some mighty
egg, BR