"The great end

Of poesy, that it should be a friend

To soothe the cares and lift the thoughts of man;"

and again in the same poem,

"They shall be accounted poet-kings

Who simply tell the most heart-easing things."

When asked of Keats, the Poet, say that he was a worshiper of abstract beauty and a creator of relative beauty; say that he was a lover of classicism and a creator of romanticism; that he was an ornamentor rather than an inventor; that he was completely absorbed in his art and ever forgetful of self except when he sang of self; that he was for art for art's sake, and not for the artist's sake; yet it is very doubtful whether he would have submitted to a law which it was painful to obey for the sake of bestowing pleasure and delight upon mankind, which Ruskin says constitutes the true artist; he worshiped his art because it gave him pleasure, and in that sense he was "for the artist's sake," yet he sought to make art great rather than himself; say that he was a master of true melody, indefinable though it be; that he was intensely emotional and never sentimental; that his poetry elevates the soul and enriches the mind, though it may not bring peace to the heart.

Finally, if with some brother he hath found less favor or more, do not quarrel with him. Ranking of poets is an idle pastime. It is like the ranking of women. It always hath been and ever will be a mystery why some men love certain women. Day by day we wonder why some men love certain poets. Let us rather be thankful that they have such a love in their hearts. No poet hath ever been bad enough to harm a man. The peace that some good soul may get from one of Watts' hymns is not to be sneered at. The artless doggerel that doth so often make death more hideous to one may bring sweet consolation to the heart of another. And so I would

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not say that Shelley is greater than Keats, although he seemeth so to me. I know that both are "unextinguished splendors of the firmament of time," and

"Like stars to their appointed height they climb,

And death is a low mist which cannot blot
The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought
Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair,

And love and life contend in it for what
Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there,
And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air."

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BURNS.

OBERT BURNS was a poet of the people, who struck the sincerest note in lyric verse and who found that universal chord in literature to which all hearts are attuned. To every man, however adverse he may be to poetry, Shakespeare is a king and Burns is a comrade. He worships the one and loves the other -and probably reads neither. If you should ask him which of Burns' songs he likes best, he would be liable to say "Comin' thro' the Rye" and "Annie Laurie"-neither of which Burns wrote.

Yet his face brightens when you speak of Burns, and why? There is quite as much cloudiness as sunshine in Burns' songs, but it is the sunshine, with its shadows to bring out its brightness, that lingers with us and hovers about us. No person thinks of him as a sad poet. To be sure, we mingle our tears with his when he sings "To Mary in Heaven," but much of his sadness is for absent loves, and we are not more prone to take that seriously than we are to sympathize with the young man who goes about sorrowfully because his best girl is out of town. Absent loves have a way of returning, and then there is smiling and sighing, for of such is the kingdom of love. But what brightens the face of this man who does not know Burns but by reputation? Why do you smile when you meet a child- -a strange child? You know from your own experience what the little one is like-how close to Nature he is how human is his heart. The child is as you have been and yet long to be. The man's face brightens because he

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knows what must have been the songs of one who went through life the same life as his-singing a song and dropping a tear wherever one or the other was most needed.

But why do you, who have studied Burns, like him? You have trembled before the wild fury of Shakespeare's “Lear," wept with Shelley for the dead Adonais, worshiped with Keats at Beauty's shrine. What is there about the poetry of this simple ploughman's son that quickens the life within you?

His is not the poetry of revelation. There is little invention in it. His "Mary in Heaven" was a "lingering star, with less'ning ray," but Wordsworth's "Lucy" was

But Shelley besought this same wild west wind to make him its

to drive his

"lyre, even as the forest is,"

"dead thoughts over the universe

Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth."

The distance from Burns to Shelley is far, very far, it is the distance from one mountain-top to another.

of these peaks may seem higher than the other.

Perhaps one
That all de-

pends upon the position of the observer. One very naturally thinks that the mountain he is climbing is the higher, but, nev

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ertheless, he enjoys the rest and peace that come from looking across to the beauties of that other one, though it may not seem nearly so lofty.

Then, again, one tires of forever looking up. He tires of seeking discoveries, even though they may be new beauties. He tires of soaring. There are times when he needs most to have his feet planted squarely upon the earth. He needs poetry there as much or more than he does upon the mountain. In truth, much of earth is so sordid that it needs to be idealized before it can be endured. That is what Burns does for you and that is the reason for your liking him. Shelley shows you a new earth which is a heaven, but Burns makes a heaven out of your own earth. One brings you a feeling of aspiration, the other a feeling of contentment. The world needs the one for its growth-the other for its happiness.

Burns' poetry being so purely lyric, it is natural that we desire to know something of the man and his relations to his fellow-men, but, unfortunately, as is so often the case, there is not much in his verse. He was a bundle of wild passions, which he sought not to control. There was a joyousness, a playfulness, and absence of malice and evil intent about his wickedness that makes it seem only half-bad, but the penalty was not the less-on earth, whatever it may have been in the after-life. For the joy of his youth, he suffered much. His death came at the age of thirty-seven, a few months after John Keats was born.

There are some things, though, about his life that you must know properly to appreciate his songs. He was the oldest of seven children of a tenant-farmer, who was moving from place to place as one misfortune after another overtook him. To this father and a teacher named Murdock the poet owes everything that helped to develop the genius within him. Murdock says that William Burns, the father, was the best man he ever knew. He taught his own children daily and made

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