THE MICHIGAN DAILY MAGAZINE
The Poetry of Nature
Editor's Note: The following is
composed of excerpts of an article
sent to us from Detroit by a writer
with whom no one here seems to
be acquainted. His opinions are
not necessarily ours, but still he
has something to say, and we re-
gret the we have not space for
the entire article. 1
(By David Clark Nimmo)
When we turn from the poets of
nature and look at the poetry of nature
we are confronted with the surprising-
ly small product of really first-class
matter of this character. It would
naturally be supposed that great and
noble volumes exist setting forth the
beauties, virtues, inspirations, and
philosophies of nature's being. They
do not exist. Such books ought to
have been written but have never been
produced. The whole English race, in
five hundred years of literary history,
has not produced one such book of
nature's poetry with lasting .appeal
and power over the greater spirits of
humanity. It is not generally known
how little first-order poetry of this
character exists till a search is made
for it, and then it is discovered that
nature as subject patter and inspira-
tion for poets is almost untouched
ground.
Great nature in her various forms,
or in the gathered unity of all her
elements, has never found a high
priest or prophet who could present
her as great and glorious to humanity.
Every spring there is a resurrection
that clothes nature more devine than
ever before, and every creation pants
with the fullness of passion and in-
finite greed. Where are the poems,
hundreds of lines long, panting with
this resurrection life, bursting with
energy and vitality and literally over-
flowing with recreating virtues?
Every summer there is an opening
of nature's heart and a flowing forth
of the boundless generosity of life
that feeds and sustains the creatures
of earth. Where are the poems on
summer that are clad in the softness
and gladness of sushine, poems in,.
which we can bask, and grow, and
ripen in fellowship with this glorious
spirit? ,
Every autumn there is a magnifi-
cence and majesty of splendor riding
upon the heavens and earth, pagean-
tries that mock the pride of mortals.
Where are the poems that translate
this 'pageantry into language?
Every winner there is a polar virility
of strength that shakes humanity out
of its voluptuous weakness and brings
it up to a naked invigorating masculin-
ity. Where are the poems that have
such a wintry age upon them that we
are chilled with the presence of death,
or rise up in a snowy immortality and
Miss Ingram's Last Book
October will see the publication of
the last novel by Eleanor M. Ingram,
whose sudden death in March, is
mourned by a host of readers, who
found in her gay and sparkling stor-
ies a quality of life, color, and move-
ment, not usually found in modern
fiction. Her new story, "The Thing
From The Lake, is significant in its
departure from her usual style, and
has been aptly termed by a critic "a
tale from the borderland of dread."
shake down the decay, weakness, and
decreptitude of time? #
Where are such poems? They have
never been written. They have never
been conceived. The plain truth of
the matter is that there has never'
been a real nature poetry or a great
nature poet. The facts ought to come
like a sledge hammer and strike the
unwelcome truth into us.
There is such a bluntness to na-
ture's suggestion and invitation, such
a conceit and pride over our small
attainments and performances, such
a pompious emphasis on our small
snatches of natural beauty, and on the highest of the hierarchic spirits that
whole, such a deadness to the vital guide and rule creation. She is stand-
spirit of nature that criticism can ing and should be a resistless invita-
hardly think or dream on the subject. tion to the poetic genius of the world.
Common criticism is a blockhead and Nature is awaiting with a fullness of
cannot see the larger and nobler views life for each of a score of differently
of nature even when it is hit on the dowered poets. She stands with an
head with Thor's hammer. invitation to all to consecrate their
There are still some thinkers and gifts to her, with a promise, that if
dreamers in the world. There is still they do, she will compensate them with
hungry desire for the unattainable in the fullness of life, feed them with her
beauty, music, and life. The large and own simplicity and greatness, robe
great and wise, the conceiving, imag- them in her softer beauty, or perhaps,
inative and musical spirit goes out in- blinding splendor, and finally gather
to nature and beholds her as one of the them to rest in her own enternal heart.
I .
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