effect, unity and profoundness of moral impression, at which the ancient poets
aimed; that it is this which constitutes the grandeur of their works, and which
makes them immortal. He will desire to direct his own efforts towards produc
ing the same effect. Above all, he will deliver himself from the jargon of mod
ern criticism, and escape the danger of producing poetical works conceived in the spirit of the passing time, and which partake of its transitoriness.
The present age makes great claims upon us; we owe it service, it will not be satisfied without our admiration. I know not how it is, but their commerce with the ancients appears to me to produce, in those who constantly practice it, a steadying and composing effect upon their judgment, not of literary works only, but of men and events in general. They are like persons who have had a very weighty and impressive experience; they are more truly than others under the empire of facts, and more independent of the language current among those with whom they live. They wish neither to applaud nor to revile their age; they wish to know what it is, what it can give them, and whether this is what they want. What they want, they know very well; they want to educe and cultivate what is best and noblest in themselves; they know, too, that this is no easy task?^aAfTror, as Pittacus said, -/JIXEJIOV koQXbv E/ifievat2?and they ask themselves sincerely whether their age and its literature can assist them in the attempt. If they are endeavoring to practice any art, they remember the plain and simple proceedings of the old artists, who attained their grand results by penetrating themselves with some noble and significant action, not by inflating themselves with a belief in the pre-eminent importance and greatness of their own times. They do not talk of their mission, nor of interpreting their age, nor
2. It is hard to be good (Greek); an aphorism of the statesman and sage Pittacus (ca. 650?570 B.C.E.).
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PREFACE TO POEMS (1853) / 1 379
of the coming poet; all this, they know, is the mere delirium of vanity; their
business is not to praise their age, but to afford to the men who live in it the
highest pleasure which they are capable of feeling. If asked to afford this by
means of subjects drawn from the age itself, they ask what special fitness the
present age has for supplying them. They are told that it is an era of progress,
an age commissioned to carry out the great ideas of industrial development and
social amelioration. They reply that with all this they can do nothing; that the
elements they need for the exercise of their art are great actions, calculated
powerfully and delightfully to affect what is permanent in the human soul; that
so far as the present age can supply such actions, they will gladly make use of
them; but that an age wanting in moral grandeur can with difficulty supply
such, and an age of spiritual discomfort with difficulty be powerfully and
delightfully affected by them.
A host of voices will indignantly rejoin that the present age is inferior to the
past neither in moral grandeur nor in spiritual health. He who possesses the
discipline I speak of will content himself with remembering the judgments
passed upon the present age, in this respect, by the two men, the one of
strongest head, the other of widest culture, whom it has produced; by Goethe
and by Niebuhr.3 It will be sufficient for him that he knows the opinions held
by these two great men respecting the present age and its literature; and that
he feels assured in his own mind that their aims and demands upon life were
such as he would wish, at any rate, his own to be; and their judgment as to
what is impeding and disabling such as he may safely follow. He will not,
however, maintain a hostile attitude towards the false pretensions of his age:
he will content himself with not being overwhelmed by them. He will esteem
himself fortunate if he can succeed in banishing from his mind all feelings of
contradiction, and irritation, and impatience; in order to delight himself with
the contemplation of some noble action of a heroic time, and to enable others,
through his representation of it, to delight in it also. I am far indeed from making any claim, for myself, that I possess this dis
cipline; or for the following poems, that they breathe its spirit. But I say, that
in the sincere endeavor to learn and practice, amid the bewildering confusion
of our times, what is sound and true in poetical art, I seemed to myself to find
the only sure guidance, the only solid footing, among the ancients. They, at
