Page:Genius, and other essays.djvu/67

A BELT OF ASTEROIDS Campbell found the key-note of his resonant naval ode, "Ye Mariners of England," in the lines, "Ye Gentlemen of England," written by Martyn Parker so long before. Burns worked over the old North Country ballad of "Sir John Barleycorn," as well as many an ancient Scottish song; and Shakespeare— but I need not multiply examples. The rude strong choruses which have sprung up in great campaigns, or at times of revolutionary excitement, have been the offspring of single minds, though verse after verse has been mated with them by the people. Such are the burdens of the French "Malbrouck" and "Ça Ira," the Irish "Shan Van Vocht," and our own grim battle-chorus of "John Brown's Body"—yet it would be difficult to prove that they had not "growed" like Topsy, without the formality of a beginning. I take it, in brief, that many of the noteworthy anonymous poems were the handiwork of single-poem makers. Artists who have become favorably known by continuous effort are not careless of their titles to successful work, nor do the book-wrights often permit specimens of the acknowledged masters to be lost.

The composers of our most familiar random poems are of several types. First, those whose one inspiration has come from a sentiment—like the love of home, of country, of sweetheart, of wife and offspring. Such have sung because a chance emotion would have vent, and their song has found a greeting in the common heart, independently of much artistic right to consideration. Next are the natural [53]