1915] on Music and Poetry 519 



Stammerers know this, and cure their stammer by augmentation of 

 speech into song. I know a man, seventy-five years old, who still will 

 repeat the historic dates of England with some zest because he made 

 up some delightful doggerel at school which lit the dry facts up and 

 made them both alive and memorable then and ever since, childish 

 as was the jingle : — 



In the year ten hundred and sixty-six 

 William the Conqueror Harold licks ; 

 in the year ten hundred and eighty-seven 

 William died : did he go to heaven ? 



Welsh preachers have an art all their own, in which prosaic utterance 

 merges into oratory and oratory into a species of chant, which becomes 

 defined and dignified in proportion to the enthusiasm and vision 

 behind the utterance. 



Both Music and Poetry may, then, be described in common with 

 all fine arts as Energy in Design, characterized by a certain spon- 

 taneous exuberance, a joyous Inspiration. It is their exuberance which 

 forms the strongest natural bond between the two arts • but, further, 

 since both happen to be expressed in terms of sound, and approach 

 us through the same avenue of sense, they naturally both express 

 themselves along the same lines. This is important. They have 

 the same outward attributes of expression, which we may call their 

 identities, and which I will ask you very carefully to note. 



III. — Identities of Speech and Song. 



It is obvious that since every sound, whether it offers itself to 

 the ear as a word or a tone — in other words, whether as a communi- 

 cative or an attractive unit of expression — has its three measurements 

 (it is high or low, long or short, strong or weak) ; variety of form 

 is, therefore, expressed by variations along three lines : 



1. Bv Inflection. 



2. By Rhythm. 



3. By Emphasis. 



And since practically all sounds are composite, there is almost always 

 a fourth inherent attribute, most important of all, which we call 

 quality, so that variety is expressed also 



4. By distinctions of Quality. 



These may be called the four identities of speech and song, 

 and their familiar applications to the two arts may be tabulated 

 as follows : 



