Some discussion of the diction of poetry is necessary, however, both in itself considered, and on account of its relation to the diction of prose. The characteristics of the latter may be seen more clearly in the light of something that furnishes a contrast, or at least a marked distinction. Further, and what is of more importance, some types of prose style approach, in varying degrees, to poetry; they spontaneously take on poetic forms, more or less marked, according to the mood in which they are written. It is essential therefore to know the verbal forms distinctive of poetic discourse.

When we speak of poetic diction, however, it is not to be understood that poetry must take on the characteristics here named, in order to be poetry. Many true poems are written with but few traces of these peculiarities; witness, for example, Tennyson's idyl. “Dora,” a paragraph of which may here be quoted, to show how simple and plain poetic language may be.

"And Dora took the child, and went her way
Across the wheat, and sat upon a mound
That was unsown, where many poppies grew.
Far off the farmer came into the field
And spied her not; for none of all his men
Dare tell him Dora waited with the child;
And Dora would have risen and gone to him,
But her heart fail'd her; and the reapers reap'd,
And the sun fell, and all the land was dark."

Here the simple tale is poetic in itself, and requires no special splendor of word or imagery. What we are to consider in the present section, however, is, how, on occasion, poetic diction is at liberty to diverge from the common usage of prose. It is, after all, only in occasional words and combinations that the two separate; the great bulk of usage remains common to both.

The motive of poetic diction is reducible to a single principle. As poetry is the language of emotion and imagination, its verbal peculiarities portray the spontaneous endeavor to make utterance more effective, either in impressiveness or in picturesqueness. In

a word, poetic diction is heightened language, — the result in words

of the fervor and sense of beauty that reign in the poet's mind.

"The word of the Poet by whom the deeps of the world are stirred, The music that robes it in language beneath and beyond the word." The following are the main characteristics of poetic diction, named in an order corresponding to poetry's natural divergence from the language of common life. What this order is, was ascertained by the study of Wordsworth's pastoral, "Michael," a poem standing, in style and subject, at only a moderate remove from prose. It is chiefly by citations from this work that the first two main characteristics here given are exemplified.

I.

Poetic Brevity of Expression.'-The first and easiest liberty taken in the spontaneous effort of poetry to heighten language is the liberty of condensation and abbreviation; this because poetry is naturally averse to lengthiness. Here a distinction must be made. Lengthiness in expression is not synonymous with length; nor does poetry shun long constructions or long words in themselves. By lengthiness is meant length without force; and it is oftenest apparent in those small words, particles of connection and relation, which constitute not the thought but the joints of the thought. Poetry takes liberties first with these, because, striking as it does for the strong points, it clears away or subordinates whatever impedes progress to them. In the case of important words, also, whenever they may be made more telling, poetry condenses or compounds to suit its purpose.

1. Poetic diction abbreviates or omits particles. Conjunctions, adverbs, and relatives may be named as representatives of this class of words; symbolic words, they will be called later. Such words, from their subordinate office, are necessarily unemphatic, and if used with scrupulous fullness tend to drag the sense.

1 In the preparation of this section on Poetic Diction, many valuable suggestions are taken from Abbott and Seeley's "English Lessons for English People."

EXAMPLES.—1. Abbreviation, or choice of shorter form: "The hills which he so oft had climbed;" "When Michael, telling o'er his years; "Ere yet the boy had put on boy's attire;" "Though naught was left undone;" "'T were better to be dumb than to talk thus."

2. Omission. a. Of the article: When day was gone;" "Some injury done to sickle, flail, or scythe;" "Not fearing toil nor length of weary days.” b. Of conjunctive particles: “But soon as Luke could stand." c. Of relative: "Even if I could speak of things thou canst not know of;" Λ Exceeding was the love he bare to him."

66

The omission of the relative is less frequent in Wordsworth than in some others; nor does he make any omitted or condensed construction violent. Compare with him some passages from Browning:

"You have the sunrise now,Ʌjoins truth to truth,
Shoots life and substance into death and void,"

where the subject-relative is omitted;

"Whence need to bravely disbelieve report
Through increased faith in thing/reports belie,"

where the article and the object-relative are omitted;

"For how could saints and martyrs failɅsee truth
Streak the night's blackness? "

where the sign of the infinitive is omitted. Browning's omission of the relative is so frequent as to be a mannerism.

2. Poetry uses more frequently than does prose the possessive for brevity's sake; as, "by the streamlet's edge," "with morrow's dawn," "his Heart and his Heart's joy." In prose the possessive is mostly confined to personal nouns and some few idioms like the one in the foregoing sentence ("for brevity's sake "); beyond these it is apt to become an affectation.

3. Poetry exercises greater liberty than prose in making compounds for an occasion.

EXAMPLES IN "MICHAEL.". "Surviving comrade of uncounted hours." "Did... overbrow large space beneath." "Brings hope with it, and forwardlooking thoughts." "Turned to their cleanly supper-board." "With Luke that evening thitherward he walked."

The tendency to join two words into one by compounding is close to the further tendency to condense important words or choose short forms for them; this is seen especially in the fre

quency, so great as almost to become the rule, with which poetry leaves off the adverbial termination; as altern for alternately, scarce for scarcely. In other parts of speech, also, terminations are often discarded; as in list for listen, vale for valley, marge for margin.

The above examples are mostly taken, with design, from poetry pitched in a rather low key; in poems where the passion or picturesqueness is greater, of course the boldness of the effects is correspondingly increased.

EXAMPLES OF COMPOUNDS. - From Shakespeare: "the always-wind-obeying deep." From Tennyson: "love-loyal to the least wish of the king"; “the peak haze-hidden." From Browning: "the cloud-cup's brim"; "yet human at the red-ripe of the heart."

II.

Poetic Archaisms and Non-Colloquialisms. The next step that poetry takes, in its endeavor to heighten language above prose usage, is to employ words elevated above everyday associations, and thus more congenial to the fervid and imaginative region in which poetry moves.

1. A very natural poetic impulse is the employment of archaisms. An archaism (from the Greek ȧpxaîos, old, ancient) is a word, or more commonly a form, older than current use, an expression that, though intelligible, is no longer employed in ordinary unemotional discourse.

The uncommonness of an archaic expression, and its associations of age, fit it for the higher and purer air of poetry; for the unusual form rouses just the attention needed to elevate the reader's mind above the commonplace, and to seek what the word conveys more than is involved in mere assertion.

EXAMPLES OF ARCHAISMS.—From Wordsworth's "Michael": "Exceeding was the love he bare to him"; "Albeit of a stern, unbending mind"; "We have, thou knowest, another Kinsman." This last example, representing the pronoun of the second person singular and the old verbal forms in -eth and -est, gives an archaism very common, more the rule than the exception, in serious poetry.

A whole poem is sometimes written in archaic diction, as suited to the character of its subject. As example of this, William Morris's "Sigurd the Volsung" may be mentioned, the first six lines of which will indicate the tone of the whole.

"There was a dwelling of Kings ere the world was waxen old;

Dukes were the door-wards there, and the roofs were thatched with gold;
Earls were the wrights that wrought it, and silver nailed its doors;

Earls' wives were the weaving-women, queens' daughters strewed its floors,
And the masters of its song-craft were the mightiest men that cast

The sails of the storm of battle adown the bickering blast."

The following, from Byron's "Childe Harold,” is an artificial imitation of the antique :

"Whilom in Albion's isle there dwelt a youth,
Who ne in virtue's ways did take delight;
But spent his days in riot most uncouth,
And vex'd with mirth the drowsy ear of Night.
Ah, me! in sooth he was a shameless wight..
Childe Harold was he hight."

...

2. The same feeling that reigns in the use of archaisms leads poetry also to shun colloquial expressions.

A colloquialism belongs to ordinary states of mind; it is unsought and unvalued expression, language as it were in undress. Poetry, in the nature of the case, is elevated; its exceptional nature calls for unusual and unsullied language; and even when, in certain lower forms, it employs the language of common life to a limited extent, it refines it and gives it a tone above the prosaic relations to which it belongs.

NOTE. This averseness to colloquial language shows itself in two ways: 1. In an impulse to find unhackneyed words for prosaic things; as in the following instances from "Michael": "At the church-door they made a gathering for him" (instead of took a collection); "where he grew wondrous rich" (colloquial prose would say got very rich); "wrought at the sheepfold" (the common preterite is worked).

2. In the avoidance, or very sparing use, of conversational abbreviations; as don't, can't, I'll, he'll, and the like. It is rather remarkable that the abbreviation 't is, for it is, which is less used in ordinary prose and conversation than it's, is correspondingly more natural as a poetic abbreviation.