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And I shan't stand waiting for love or scorn
When the feast is laid for a day new-born. . .
Oh, better let the little things I loved when little
Return when the heart finds the great things brittle;
And better is a temple made of bark and thong
Than a tall stone temple that may stand too long.

Orrick Johns

IMAGES AND SYMBOLS

Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image.

Ex. xx. 4.

Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.

While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain:

In the days when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened.

And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of a bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low;

Also, when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets:

Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

Ecc. xii. 1-7.

As we all know, the ancient Hebrews were forbidden by their religion to make graven images of persons or animals. This may have been the first Puritanical prohibition against the arts of painting and sculpture. But unlike many of our Puritanical prohibitions against the arts, it may have served a good purpose. The Hebrews were a small people, numerically, living in a small country, surrounded by other peoples whose worship was sensual and crude. Perhaps they worshipped Jahveh more spiritually and cleanly because they were not permitted to make

an image of Him, or of the creatures made in His image. Perhaps that is one reason why the Hebrews gave the world a monotheistic religion, a religion spiritually perceived. We must remember that the ancient world had no science comparable to ours, and strong enough to strike a lance of light through the dark fabric of ignorance and superstition, and to shatter the gross, material gods behind it. And for this reason, and for other reasons, the development of monotheistic religion might have come much later in history if the ancient Hebrews had been allowed to make graven images and worship them after the manner of other nations of their time.

Now in all strong races the desire to give form and substance to ideas and emotions is strong and keenly felt. The Hebrews were no exception to this rule, and the images which they were not allowed to make with their fingers they made with their minds and gave to the world in a literature strong and clear and beautiful. The reader can not find, I suppose, in all of the literature written or rewritten in our language, a more excellent description of old age than that quoted from Ecclesiastes. It is a superb description because it is a universal truth stated in symbols that are absolutely true and appropriate. The majesty of these metaphors has given this passage everlasting life.

Let us take a single verse of this chapter and translate it into plain prose statement. Instead of saying "In the days when the keepers of the house shall tremble," let us say, "In the days when a man's arms have grown weak "; instead of "and the strong men shall bow themselves," let us say, "when the legs are bent "; instead of "and the grinders shall cease because they are few," "when a man is losing his teeth and his ability to masticate"; and instead of "and those that look out of the windows be darkened," "when a man grows blind." Having done this we find that we have stated a scientific fact. But we have stated it quite unfeelingly. And therefore, when we say it in this fashion, we awaken no sense of wistfulness, fear, tenderness, regret or compassion in the reader. Whereas the great original, by its transcendent beauty and truth imaginatively

expressed, reaches our minds and hearts and abides with us. It induces sympathy.

Images and symbols, then, are valuable in literature because they present truth far more concisely, vividly, memorably and emotionally than literal statement.

The more we think about it the more certain we become that the use of images and symbols in poetry has an importance that is far more than literary or decorative. It is structural. It takes issue from a poet's realization of life. The sense impressions which go into the making of a poet's images and symbols are the result of what his nimble five wits have taught him. True images and symbols are not worked out intellectually and tacked upon the surface of a poem superficially, as a ribbon bow is tacked to a piece of lingerie in a department store. Like good rhythms, good images and symbols are the direct and truthful record of a poet's emotions and ideas and are capable of giving the reader a share in these ideas.

Whenever images and symbols have been devised by the "surface intellect" for the superficial adornment of a work of art and for the love of mere cleverness, analysis is likely to reveal weakness and æsthetic insincerity. Sometimes poems by very clever moderns fall short of being good poems simply because the symbols used in them could never have been realized and profoundly felt and are, therefore, rather more clever than true. Says Wallace Stevens, in "Tattoo"

"The light is like a spider.

It crawls over the water.

It crawls over the edges of the snow.

It crawls under your eyelids

And spreads its webs there-
Its two webs."

Read casually that sounds well enough. But it will not bear analysis. A spider is a small, dark, rayed object moving in darts and jerks. Is light a spider in form, color, texture, movement, power? Do spiders crawl over water, over the edges of

snow, under our eyelids? It sounds improbable. To read these lines thoughtfully is to be convinced that light is not at all like a spider. It is difficult to conceive of any interpretation of the poem that would reveal truth in this symbol.

Let us compare it with another little poem, by Carl Sandburg. The poem is called "Fog" and the new symbol used to make us feel a sense of the fog is what makes all the sum and substance of it.

"The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on."

Evidently Mr. Sandburg wishes to give us a sense of the quietness that is always in a fog. Nothing else but a cat moves so silently as a fog. The symbolism is daring, but it is quite true and has been truthfully felt. If we know what a fog is like, we can feel it for ourselves. It is whimsical, to be sure, and these lines have nothing more to recommend them than the honesty and suggestive power of this symbol or image. But having that, they justify themselves.

All images and symbols used in poetry can be tested by the reader. For a lover of poetry with a sympathetic imagination will be able to discriminate between sincere craftsmanship and that which is spurious. He will learn for himself why a nightingale is not a real bird in the poem of a man who has never heard one sing, but feels called upon to maunder about a nightingale's song. He will learn why an English primrose, beloved of Wordsworth, becomes a false flower in a poem by an American mimic who has never seen one, who would be wiser to write about goldenrod. He will understand why it is a heinous æsthetic sin to bring heather into a poem as a rhyme for weather, when the word is not only irrelevant, but only half understood through the literature of others. And if he will contrast enough

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