The Song of Solomon : and the Lamentations of Jeremiah

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HEBREW ELEGIES 73
deeper experience which seemed to lie beyond our
reach. While we naturally shrank from entering the
via dolorosa, we were dimly conscious that the pilgrims
who trod its rough stones had discovered a secret that
remained hidden from us, and we coveted their attain-
ment, although we did not envy the bitter experience
by which it had been acquired. This feeling may have
been due in part to the foolish sentimentality that is
sometimes indulged in by extreme youth ; but that is
not the whole explanation of it, for when our path
conducts us from the flat, monotonous plain of ease
and comfort into a region of chasms and torrents, we
do indeed discover an unsuspected depth in hfe. Now
it is the mission of the poetry of sorrow to interpret
this discovery to us. At least it should enable us to
read the lessons of experience in the purest light. It
is not the task of the poet to supply a categorical
answer to the riddle of the universe; stupendous as
that task would be, it must be regarded as quite a
prosaic one. Poetry will not fit exact answers to set
questions, for poetry is not science ; but poetry will
open deaf ears and anoint blind eyes to receive the
voices and visions that haunt the depths of experience.
Thus it leads on to
" that blessed mood,
In which the burden of the mystery,
In which tlie heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world
Is lightened."
It may not be obvious to the reader of an elegy
that this function is discharged by such a poem, for elegiac
poetry seems to aim at nothing more than the thoughtful
expression of grief Certainly it is neither didactic nor
metaphysical. Nevertheless in weaving a wreath of