READING AND MEMORIZING POETRY by Mrs. L. D. Avery-Stuttle

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 20, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 16.

READING AND MEMORIZING POETRY.

By Mrs. L. D. Avery-Stuttle

THE passing years, with their burdens and cares, their worries and their heartaches, have left behind them gray hairs and bent forms. But let the dull ear catch the snatch of that song mother used to sing in those old days, or let some one repeat a single line of that childish rhyme we learned so long, long ago, and immediately we are a child again. Among most of us, our first memory is of a little song or prayer in verse, learned in our childhood; and this memory is among the sweetest which haunt the chambers of the soul. We forget that it is forty, fifty, sixty years since we first heard that sweet childish refrain, and, like a flash, memory brings back the very place where we were when we first heard it. Perhaps we were at mother's knee, with our head in the dear lap, and the soft, cool fingers—than whose none have ever seemed quite so soft and cool—smoothing our curly locks. Perhaps we were out in the old barn hunting eggs for mother to make a cake for company, when we first heard somebody sing that song or repeat that little verse. The mind and brain of childhood is so plastic and easily impressed that we have never forgotten it. Memory may be treacherous at other times, but it is accurate enough now. I can never hear that sweet old song—

"Up to a land of light we're going, Joys, joys are there,"—

without seeing, pictured on the walls of memory, a very little girl mounted on the shoulders of a big boy, and borne slowly over the dusty road, leading down a hill near our country home, while the yellow rays of a summer sun paint earth and sky with a mellow light.

Then, there was my bedtime prayer,—that was in verse also. What is there about rhyme and rhythm that make them linger so lovingly in the memory? The little verse of prayer was of my mother's own composition,—I think she prepared it especially for me,—and to this day, whenever I repeat it, I am a child again, tucked carefully away in the trundle-bed my father made me, away in the old log house with the red front door—the home of my early years.

"Watch over me, Lord, through another night, And keep me safe till the morning light, And when I awake may I love Thee still, And ever delight to do Thy will."

The simple little rhyme has a sacred cadence yet, which the passing of the swift years can never hush.

Now, if there is something about those twin sisters, Poetry and Music, which is so easily remembered, and so difficult to forget, how careful we all ought to be, and parents particularly so, that the poetry memorized and the songs learned by the little ones be such as to awaken only sweet emotions, as memory faithfully reproduces them in after years.

It is a true saying that poetry is the sweetest vehicle ever employed by truth. But, while this is so, the opposite of truth, insidious error—

Hideous, dark, unholy thing, With thousand heads and poisonous sting,—

employs also the subtle charm of poetry with which to express her unholy thoughts and doctrines, and sacrilegiously brings the livery of heaven with which to clothe the sooty imps of darkness.

One of the gravest errors, and one of the commonest, which the arch-enemy tries, with his original cunning, to palm off as truth, is the fallacy of the natural immortality of the soul; and this dangerous doctrine is sandwiched in between every other leaf of the popular hymn-books of the day. In fact, there seems to be something about this particular error which is so fascinating as to appeal to the finer sensibility of the poet, until, forgetful or ignorant of the truths of the Bible, he pours out his soul in an offering of verse to the goddess of error.

Poetry is beautiful, but error is hideous. How sad to unite the two, as in the following sweet lines, with which many of us are acquainted:—

"Over the river they beckon to me,— Loved ones who've crossed to the farther side; A gleam of their snowy robes I see, But their voices are hushed by the rushing tide."

And so on through the poem.

Again, we all know there are some selections from even the acknowledged great poets of earth, which we can not read without a blush of shame. O, the pity of it!

But, while this is undeniably true, we will not dwell upon this phase of our subject. We must hasten to place upon the roll of honor such names as noble Milton, our beloved Longfellow and Whittier and Holmes and Lowell and Bryant—and there are many others who deserve mention. But surely these may be fitly termed masters of verse. Such poems as "Snowbound," "Evangeline," "The Hanging of the Crane," or "The Chambered Nautilus," can scarcely fail to inspire us to sweeter, higher, purer living.

It is possible to express the most lofty sentiment and the most holy aspirations in no other way so perfectly and so beautifully as in verse. How could such perfect love and trust in the All-Father be better expressed than in the following?—

"I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air, I only know I can not drift Beyond His love and care."

"Nothing before, nothing behind, The steps of faith Fall on the seeming void, and find The rock beneath."

What wonderful majesty, sublimity, and strength is expressed in that poem of Derzhavin, which thus opens:—

"O Thou Eternal One, whose presence bright All space doth occupy, all motion guide, Unchanged through Time's all-devastating flight,— Thou only God—there is no God beside."

Ah, Poetry! sweet inspiration from the Eternal! capable of giving best and fittest expression to the countless emotions of the human heart,—it alone plays as with the fingers of a master upon the many-keyed instrument of the human soul.

What poetry loftier than that of Isaiah? or sweeter than the Psalms of David? or tenderer than the Songs of Solomon—which out-rival the passionate strains of Thomas Moore? or more pathetic than the weird Lamentations of Jeremiah from his pit of slime and darkness?

It is not safe to conclude that we may profitably read and commit to memory the compositions of any of the great poets simply because of their popularity. Neither is it wise or in good taste to toss the poems of an unknown writer aside as unworthy our attention. Among my most cherished possessions is a personal letter written me by our beloved Quaker poet, J. G. Whittier, penned from his home in Amesbury, Mass., many years ago. In this letter he says:—

"The way of poetry, like that of the transgressor, is hard. Hard work, great patience, and long, brooding thought are requisite."

As nothing short of this will do in the preparation and composing of most true poems, we find that few young writers of the day are willing to pay the price.

If one wishes to memorize a poem, let him simply read it aloud two or three times daily for a week. I have always found it to be true that anything which I have committed to memory hastily has seldom stayed with me.

In conclusion: Let us read and memorize that poetry which is up-lifting and beautiful in its sentiment, and which is free from anti-Scriptural errors; and remember that the one great object of true poetry is only

"To make the souls of mortals pure and white And fair and sinless as the angels be, To keep the fire on Love's high altar bright,— This is thy mission, O sweet Poetry."