does more than create a mood; it also serves as an image of the idea of the imperishable quality of beauty. In Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach the picture of the sea creates a mood, and it also stands in Arnold's mind as the living image of an idea:

"The sea is calm to-night.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits; -on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!
Only, from the long line of spray

Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,
Listen! You hear the grating roar

Of pebbles which the waves draw back and fling,

At their return, up the high strand,

Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring

The eternal note of sadness in."

And, as if he feared lest we fail to perceive that this picture is but the image of an idea to him, he proceeds to explain:

"Sophocles long ago

Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought

Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow

Of human misery; we

Find also in the sound a thought,

Hearing it by this distant northern sea."

Then he explains in even more elaborate detail just what idea this picture stands for in his mind. To him that ebbing tide with its "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar" is but the image of the ebbing tide of Faith:

"The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd,

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.”

One could not well ask for a more perfect image to make clear an idea. Another excellent example occurs in Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum. In the last section of the poem, beginning:

"But the majestic river floated on,

Out of the mist and hum of that low land,
Into the frosty starlight,"

the river is an image of man's destiny:

"A foil'd circuitous wanderer-till at last

His luminous home of waters opens, bright
And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars
Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea."

Contemporary poetry has laid great stress upon the use of images; indeed, certain contemporary poets have called themselves "imagists." But the more conservative modern poets have also used images freely. Edwin Markham chooses these images to describe the character of Abraham Lincoln:

"The color of the ground was in him, the red earth;
The smack and tang of elemental things:

The rectitude and patience of the cliff;

The good-will of the rain that loves all leaves;

The friendly welcome of the wayside well;

The courage of the bird that dares the sea;

The gladness of the wind that shakes the corn;

The pity of the snow that hides all scars;
The secrecy of streams that make their way

Under the mountain to the rifted rock;

The tolerance and equity of light

That gives as freely to the shrinking flower
As to the great oak flaring to the wind-" 1

In "Frost To-night" Edith M. Thomas gives us a picture that suggests both a mood and an idea:

"Apple-green west and an orange bar;
And the crystal eye of a lone, one star

And, 'Child, take the shears and cut what you will,
Frost to-night-so clear and dead-still.'

Then I sally forth, half sad, half proud,

And I come to the velvet, imperial crowd,

The wine-red, the gold, the crimson, the pied,-
The dahlias that reign by the garden side.

The dahlias I might not touch till to-night!
A gleam of shears in the fading light,
And I gathered them all,-the splendid throng,
And in one great sheaf I bore them along.

In my garden of Life with its all late flowers
I heed a Voice in the shrinking hours:
'Frost to-night-so clear and dead-still'
Half sad, half proud, my arms I fill." 2

An image, then, is a mental picture used, not merely to create a mood but also to stand for an idea.

A symbol is much like an image except that it is not necessarily a picture. It is any concrete object used to stand for Symbols an abstract idea. The cross, for instance, is a symbol for Christianity, the crescent for Mohammedanism, the stars and stripes for the United States. The use of symbols is natural. Certain objects are almost universally used to stand for certain ideas. The Rock of Gibraltar

1 Reprinted from Lincoln, the Man of the People with the permission of the author.

2 Reprinted by permission of and arrangement with Houghton Mifflin Company.

serves as a symbol for anything firm and unshakable. Mountains have always stood in men's minds for the eternal strength and patience of God.

"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,

From whence cometh my help,"

cried the Psalmist. Similarly the sea has always been a symbol for the vast unknown deep whence came the soul of man and whither it will return again,

"When that which drew from out the boundless deep

Turns again home."

Poetic suggestion, as you can readily see, is at the very core of symbolism. Nothing is more suggestive than a good symbol, but nothing is more confusing

Dangers of

than a vague, uncertain one. If it is to have symbolism force, there must be no doubt in the mind of the reader as to what the symbol suggests. The Idylls of the King, being allegorical, naturally contain many symbols, some of which, like Excalibur, are clear; but others of which, like Merlin's Siege Perilous, are vexingly vague. In Tennyson's Flower in the Crannied Wall there is a definite, effective symbol wherein a tiny flower stands for the whole mystery of exist

ence:

"Flower in the crannied wall,

I pluck you out of the crannies,

I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower-but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is."

Symbols and images, then, are ways of effectively suggesting an idea. An image is a word picture that stands for an idea; a symbol is a concrete object that stands Summary for an idea. The suggestion aroused by each must be clear.

THE THOUGHT IN POETRY

"It is not growing like a tree

In bulk, doth make man better be;

Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
A lily of a day

Is fairer far in May

Although it fall and die that night;

It was the plant and flower of light.

In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures, life may perfect be."

If there were nothing more to poetry than the qualities which we have discussed, it would be difficult to see why this stanza from one of Ben Jonson's poems

Poetry deals with thought

ing

as well as feel- is great poetry. It has no definite mood; it makes no strong appeal to the emotions. It is not primarily the expression of feeling; it is not just a beautiful picture, or a startling figure of speech; it is not remarkable for its tone color. True, there is an image, the image of the lily, "the plant and flower of light." But this image is valuable because it expresses an idea, the idea that perfection is not necessarily measured in terms of time or space or size. The lily, which blooms and dies in a single day, is said to be as perfect as anything in the world. Here we come upon a new beauty in poetry. This is the beauty of ideas. Poetry deals with thought as well as feeling.

Sometimes a poet is not content merely to create pictures, feelings, or sounds. He feels in the beauty which he sees How the poet's a deeper significance than can be expressed imagination in terms of mere feeling or sensation. looks out of his window and sees a tree; his imagination is stirred by its beauty and he writes:

works

"I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree."

He