Art and Poetic Vocation

Where it surfaces

• Tennyson

  Tennyson is celebrated as a 'brother of the greatest poets,' true to nature and art, whose soul grew to music.

• To My Lady Graygown: With a Handful of Verses

  The poem reflects on the nature of poetic creation, contrasting master-singers with humble, simple verses that still hold value and bring pleasure.

• Music

  Music is celebrated as a divine art form that transcends words, with the poet invoking its power to express the inexpressible and to serve as a 'Pentecostal speech' for love.

• Victor Hugo

  Hugo's life as a poet, his joyful quest for beauty, and his work as a 'Dauntless Toiler of the Sea' highlight the poet's vocation.

• Portrait and Reality

  The poem explores the tension between an idealized mental portrait and the living reality, a theme of artistic representation.

• To James Whitcomb Riley

  The poem reflects on Riley's poetic craft, emphasizing that truth to life is the finest art and that his simple, old-fashioned songs resonate deeply with the human heart.

• To Mark Twain

  Celebrates Twain's craft as a humorist and writer, whose 'breezy humour' and 'arrows' of wit defined his art.

• The Mocking-Bird

  The poem explores the idea of true artistic expression versus mere imitation, as the bird finds its own voice at night.

• The Empty Quatrain

  The quatrain itself is a poetic form, and the focus on the cup's flawless craftsmanship reflects the theme of artistic perfection.

• New Year's Eve

  The dream centers on collaborative translation of Heine's songs, highlighting the shared creative bond between the narrator and Marguerite.

• National Monuments

  The poem highlights how art, through bronze and marble, immortalizes noble men and serves a higher purpose than military might.

• Mother Earth

  The poem celebrates poets and singers whose souls enter their songs, making them immortal and echoing through humanity.

• Milton

  Milton is portrayed as a poet who surrendered his singing robes for battle but ultimately regained his poetic voice, surpassing his earlier work.

• Keats

  The poem celebrates Keats's poetic gift and his immortal youth through art, emphasizing the power of poetry to transcend death.

• Shelley

  Shelley is portrayed as a knight-errant and minstrel, forever tuning his lyre to unearthly music, embodying the poetic quest for immortal beauty.

• Robert Browning

  The poem celebrates Browning's true lineage as one of poets, emphasizing the eternal and sacred nature of poetic art.

• Longfellow

  The shepherd-poet's quiet, persistent singing in a noisy world embodies the poet's calling to create beauty and order through art.

• Thomas Bailey Aldrich

  Aldrich is portrayed as an artist who works with careful, loving touch and knows the magic spell of 'not-too-much,' emphasizing the craft of writing.

• Master of Music

  The poem explores the enduring legacy of artistic creation, emphasizing that true art outlives its creator and continues to inspire.

• To Julia Marlowe

  The poem celebrates the power of art and recitation to animate and transform classical beauty.

• Pan Learns Music

  Pan's act of making music from a river-reed embodies the creative and artistic vocation.

• Three Alpine Sonnets

  The glacier's waterfalls are likened to a poet's heart feeling love and beginning to sing, linking nature to poetic creation.

• Texas

  Envisions a future of greater words, finer arts, and music, calling for intellectual and artistic achievement as the true wealth of a nation.

• The Little-Neck Clam

  The poem self-consciously explores how a single subject can be adapted to different literary styles and magazine markets, reflecting on the poet's craft and commercial demands.

• Storm-Music

  Music is portrayed as a queen and a transformative force that turns discord and pain into something pure and great, emphasizing the artist's role in transmuting life's struggles.

• The Heavenly Hills of Holland

  References to old Dutch painters like Hobbema, Ruysdael, Van Goyen, and Vermeer highlight the role of art in capturing and preserving the beauty of the hills.

• Facta Non Verba

  The chapter explores the power of words to inspire action, reflecting on the poet's craft.

• Spirit of the Everlasting Boy

  The poet self-consciously engages with the tradition of the school ode, reworking Gray's elegiac mode into an American, optimistic vision.

• Richard Watson Gilder

  Gilder's life is framed as a poetic and musical vocation, with 'heavenly song and flame' and the 'lyric cry' as lasting gifts.

• The Valley of Vain Verses

  The chapter contrasts true poetic vocation with vain, self-indulgent verse that lacks authenticity.

• The Pipes o’ Pan

  Music, as an art form, is credited with the unique power to express the human heart, highlighting the vocation of the artist.

• To a Young Girl Singing

  The poem contrasts mechanical performance with the deeper, lived understanding of art that comes from personal experience.

• The Old Flute

  The poem centers on the musician's relationship with his art, the loss of ability, and the gratitude for having created beauty.

• A Fairy Tale

  The poem celebrates the creative and humorous vocation of Mark Twain, framed as a fairy endowment of wit and humour.