Page:Poetry, a magazine of verse, Volume 7 (October 1915-March 1916).djvu/395

Wherefore the Poet? Do you see anything at all? Have you any vision? Do you see Life with eyes of Life?

Social reality is unknown to you. You have not caught a glimpse of it, O practical, sensible one.

And what is poetry? The very soul of adventure—the going forth, the daring to do, the vision of doing and the how to do—the vision which creates a situation. Hence is the poet ever the pioneer.

The spirit of poetry is the very spirit of mastery. Hence the poets of the past have been the masters of the multitudes of the past. And such is the case today. Why not?

Why should not those who see, drive those who do not see—when seeing is so easy?

Awake! O multitudes; for poetry is the highest of practical powers. It is not what you have supposed.

Awake!

The Pacific states are loyal to their own artists to a degree which other sections of this vast nation might well emulate. Because, in spite of the manifest danger of provincialism, art, like charity, should begin at home; indeed,