Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/124

94 progenitor of an endless succession, in English verse, of our Swifts and Priors and Cannings and Dobsons, of our own inimitable Holmes. There are feeling and fancy, and everything wise and witty and charming, in the individuality of these Horatii; they give us delightful verse, and human character in sunny and wholesome moods. One secret of their attractiveness is their apt measurement of limitations; they have made no claim to rank with the great imaginative poets who supply our loftier models and illustrations.

Return for a moment to that creative art which is Absolutely creative song. found in early narrative poetry and the true drama. The former escapes the pale cast of thought through the conditions of its formation Primitive ballads. and rehearsal. Primitive ballads have a straightforward felicity; many of them a conjuring melody, as befits verse and music born together. Their gold is virgin, from the rock strata, and none the better for refining and burnishing. No language is richer in them than the English. Our traditional ballads, such as "Clerk Saunders," "Burd Ellen," "Sir Patrick Spens," " Chevy-Chace," "Edward! Edward!" usually are better poetry than those of known authorship. Not until you come to Drayton's "Agincourt" do you find much to rival them. What I say applies to the primitive ballads of all nations. Touch them with our ratiocination, and their charm vanishes. The epos evolved from