POEMS AND SONGS, AND LECTURE ON POETRY. BY ROBERT DUTHIE. WITH A BRIEF MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. Stonehaven : JOHN TAYLOR, BOOKSELLER. 1866. PREFACE. It is to be found that, among many people who read a little, there is an opinion prevalent, that Poetry is only mental trifling,—something without usefulness or sound thought. It might, however, be easily demonstrated, that vast treasures of practical wisdom, wit and science anticipated, are found in verse, not the less pleasing that they are accompanied by sweet sounds and delightful language. Among men and women of the mere matter-of-fact class, poesy is a terrible taint, an idle disease, with which, if a man be infected, he is held to be a singular being: if in business, he is placed mentally under a sort of quarantine. If the poet be a denizen of a small town, he is too often prized only when death has laid his cold hand upon him, and his merits, acknowledged by the discerning class, are in the mouths of all men. Those who are, on the other hand, thinkers as well as readers, know that true Poets are men of fine feelings and great powers-for, next to being a poet, is the power of understanding one; they know, too, that there are more poets in the world than is supposed; there are poets who never wrote a line, who have not the gift of making others see objects and feel as they do, and yet there is nothing in nature to which their imaginations do not give a poetic hue. Campbell called poetry "the eloquence of truth." That definition may be as good as many more-none will serve for poetry in all its moods; but it would be a great step in the process of humanizing mankind, to which the energies of the age are directed, if good poetry were considered less of moonshine and more of solid thought, illustrating the world of |