Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 September 1880 — Defining Poetry. [ARTICLE]

Defining Poetry.

“What is poetry ?” is a conundrum we find in an esteemed contemporary. When a young lady receives a letter from her lover, and finds at the omega of it those soul-inspiring lines, “The rose is red, the violet’s blue, no knife can cut our love in two,” she is willing to make oath that sweeter poetry was never written. The world is full of poetry. The little girl of six summers, with heavenly blue eyes, laughing dimples, flnffy golden hair, pink cheeks and pink sash, is a poem, and ten years hence Borne young man will want to metre and form a oouplet. The yellow cur going “kiting” down the street, with tinware attachment, is a poem—of the doggerel order. The sad-eyed fisherman, who stanza ’long the river’s edge four hours without getting a bite, is a verse—a verse to standing there any longer; so epics up his lines, which have not fallen in pleasant places, hnd concludes torou-deau-wu home. And the tuft of tender grass that appears after the snows of winter havedeparted, is a spring poem—but not the kiud the editor “sits down upon.” The man in the white pants at the picnic does that. And now if you don’t know what jioetry is, we give it ap.—Norristown Herald.