Page:Genius, and other essays.djvu/159

STODDARD'S POEMS thoughtful inspiration of maturity. The book is more subjective than his former work. The converse is true of many poets, who seem only in youth—when the secrets of their emotion are least worth knowing—to remember Sidney's injunction, "Look in thy heart and write."

Stoddard avowedly belongs to the natural, universal school. Rejecting the idea that a cisatlantic poet should imitate the inventor of corn-stalk architecture, and adopt new modes less excellent than those already tested, he believes that an artist has all lands, seasons, and themes for his material, and may compel all forces to be the servants of his craft. Nevertheless his country lies near his heart, and in handling patriotic themes he chooses the open way and best. Of his perfect simplicity as a balladist the publishers seem to be aware. "Red Riding-Hood," "The Babes in the Wood," and "Putnam the Brave," composed at their suggestion, delighted young and old alike. In the present volume, "The Ballad of Valley Forge," "When this Old Flag was New," and that Parnassian counterpart to Eastman Johnson's glorious drawing, "The Little Drummer," show what genius can accomplish without striving after effect. We have the inspiration of the sibyl without the contortions. It looks easy, but try it! Nor can anything be better than "The Ballad of Crecy"—as healthy and surging as old Drayton's "Agincourt"—upon which, by the way, it is somewhat closely modelled.

Of the poems before us we are least attracted by the sentimental though finished studies from life [145]