The Green caldron - University Library

8 The Green Caldron
melody? Perhaps the words should equal the rhythm and the picture as
well as the idea.
Then the rhythmic use of symbols to represent the collision of men with
the meanness or ugliness, or beauty or gentleness of the world around them,
accounts for our enchantment with a poem. In the flying particles from
uncounted collisions there is a radiation of behavior and attitudes lodging, or
hidden, in ourselves. We, too, remember a time,
I have looked upon those brilliant creatures.
And now my heart is sore.
Why do we feel this recognition ? Why do babies feel soothed by singing
or rocking? Say that it is because we all come from the moon-struck sea,
with its tidal motion and surging, hissing, whispering waves, or say it is
because we all are born with common emotions, a common store of knowledge.
Explain it as you will, we feel a kinship with the rhythm, perhaps primitive,
perhaps educated to sophistication, of music or words. When the words
mingle their sounds with the sounds they describe, and when they fall into
a metric pattern, we feel a stirring of ancient memory. We need not search
for other explanations. We carry the wish for patterns of sound within us.
Satisfied, we can listen to the music of words.
I saw, before I had well finished.
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.
Is this all, though ? Do we seek for something more ? We could hypnotize
ourselves into insensibility by the rhythmic repetition of a single word or
sentence. We could chant jargon for hours, but we seldom do. We want
something more. We want the balanced equation, after all. We want a
poem to have a beginning and an end, and, to complete a meaningful circle,
we want the rhythmic picture of the words to equal the idea. Our words
and music must have significance, because only then can we link our silent,
inarticulate thoughts with spoken recognition.
What, then, is the purpose of a poem, its reason for existence? Is its
purpose to soothe, to excite, to lull, to interpret, to give expression to feelings ?
All of these, and more. By perfection of language and rhythm, by balance
between content and form, a poem can be weighed on a scale, or measured
by a rule, of correspondences. By relationships between its parts, a poem
can bestow a wholeness, a completeness, a union of one with another.
What is a poem good for? Good for standing alone, for sharing balanced
perfection with men.