Gems of truth in poetry; a book of didactic, lyric and epic poems

Introduction

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One writer has said that poetry may be defined “as the metrical expression of lofty or beautiful thought, feeling, or action, in imaginative and artistic form.” Mere verse may be distinguished from poetry by its unartistic or mechanical expression of common¬ place thought, feeling, or incident. Our very best poetry is the product of men who possess a high de _ gree of creative and imaginative ability; -and in their towering mood they are attuned to a high pitch of energetic passion, lofty thought, intuitive vision, and their feelings are intensified and yet possess a great bearing of delicacy. In poetry the mind flies out into a field of sublime thought and often suffuses the phe¬ nomena of nature and the scenes of human life with splendor and felicity to its own zest. From a gen¬ eral standpoint, poetry has in ancient, medieval and modern ages been viewed as occupying a sphere above prose, and yet while in their essential difference, they often repose on the same level. The difference main¬ ly lies in the fact that poetry is ideal while prose is commonplace. Ideas of history should be advanced clearly and defined in one as well as in the other. The “AEneid” is an account of the founding of Rome and seems to be unlike prose. The prose writer would briefly and succinctly say, of the swiftly pass¬ ing of an enjoyable evening : “The evening passed pleasantly and quickly.” But the poet would set his soul aglow and reach out into the far distant land of imagination and say:

“The twilight hours like birds flew by, As lightly and as free;

Ten thousand stars were in the sky, Ten thousand in the sea.

“For every wave with dimpled face That leaped upon the air,

Had caught a star in its embrace,

And held it trembling there.’'

Almost in every nation poets have stood pre-emi¬ nent, and in fact the greatest poets the world has ever seen have been men who were inspired of the Lord. Who in all the annals of both sacred and profane history ranks above “the sweet Psalmist of Israel?” Coming on down to uninspired poets, whose names stand above Homer of Greece; Milton, Shakespeare, Chaucer and Tennyson of England; Dante of Italy and Bryant, Longfellow, Lowell and Whittier of America? However poets are often undervalued; they are looked upon as being men of low impulse to society, being eccentric in manner and possessing the disposition of an anchoret, or recluse. This, of course, is the period when material interests dominate the life of men. The poet when in his flight of lofty thoughts brings down from nature’s portal gates the inspiration of the buried past and silently lays them in close touch with the present. In his “Festus,” Bailey says:

“Poetry is itself a thing of God;

He made his prophets poets, and the more

We feel of poesy, do we become

Like God in love and power—undermakers.”

In fact all nature is filled with poetry, with God as the great Poet, who has filled the whole universe with rhythm and beauty. The poems of human make-up are mere driftwood accumulated at the dam of the divine river of poetry. The lives of men are poems—some an entertaining comedy while others a moving tragedy. The great sheet of the heavens sing out its poetry through the stars; the sun from a far away fountain shines upon us in rhythmical wave¬ lets; the planetary system that entertains the great , moving bodies in their respective orbits preserves sublime harmony in movement, and the rippling of the forest stream, the rhythmical roll of the mighty surg¬ ing billows, are the poetry of the glittering waters.

In the person of our much esteemed Elder L. M. Byers, whom the writer has been knowing for quite a long time and with whom he has labored in the heat of the day for the betterment of fallen humanity, is endowed the wonderful gift of poetry, and in this book—GEMS OF TRUTH IN POETRY—he has produced poems unsurpassed by the world’s greatest poetical production. They are diadactic, lyric and epic and the manner in which they are expressed is lofty and inspiring. They are only a meager part of the many poems written by the author, and doubtless at a later date his other unique productions will ap' pear in like manner as these have. His host of friends urgently requested him to bring out this book. Hav¬ ing known, therefore, the author for a long time and having been intimately associated with him, and also having read and re-read the manuscript before the book was printed, I most heartily commend its pur¬ chasing and reading by a generous public. Every child, especially, should be given one of Byers’ books that as its physical body grows its mind may grow also by fathoming the deep of this book of poems. No better birthday or Christmas gift could be given to any one, than this book, except the Bible itself. Read and digest its contents.

D. N. JACKSO'N, Pastor, County Avenue Baptist Church, Texarkana, Arkansas.

November 18, 1918.

Contents

Christ’s Birth. 11

Satan Conquered. 12

Why I Am Happy . 13