In Quest of an Ideal (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1920. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER III Rhyming If I may not say that I was alone with God in those days, I may at least say that I had, as my constant companion, the vision of the immanent or indwelling God. But I had another companion--the beauty of nature, of the outward world. Sensitiveness to natural beauty was an antidote to my undue inwardness. It was also one of the influences which moved me to write poetry. I began to make up rhymes when I was a boy of ten. During the last two years of my school life I wrote a good deal of verse. While I was at Oxford I scarcely wrote a single line. Then the power came back to me, and during the next five years I produced two volumes of verse. Then came another silence which lasted for eighteen years. Then the power again came back to me and remained with me for another period of five years. Then came a third silence, which lasted about sixteen years. Then, as my swan song, I wrote a short sequence of " Sonnets to the Universe." The fact that my output of poetry was so strangely intermittent shows that it was a genuine overflow from the wells of my inner life. So does the further fact that it was all intensely subjective, that the words J and my and me abound in nearly every poem that I wrote. I can honestly say that I never tried to write poetry. When the wells overflowed of their own accord I wrote. When the waters remained below the flood level I was silent. I made no attempt to pump up the hidden waters and pour them away. Hence the significance of my poetry as a revelation of what was passing in my heart and mind. Whether what I wrote was good or bad, whether it was poetry or mere verse, whether as a craftsman I was original or imitative, I was at least trying to say what I really felt and really thought. I use the words " really tho...