Poetry does not make its primary appeal to the reason. It has to do with the heart and its emotions. Through scientific deduction and the principles of philosophy we may storm at the reason forever, yet if we do not feel the truth, it is never ours.

“Above the reason of the head is the feeling of the heart” (Rousseau).

“The heart has reasons of its own, which the head can never understand” (Pascal).

I do not like the thought that poetry is written. Rather, it is seen, felt, and lived. Poetry is everywhere, and, best of all, it is within the heart—“we have this treasure in earthen vessels.” These verses I trust may act as a stimulus to breathe into life or rouse into flame the poetry of your own soul, which in turn will measure the amount of joy and pleasure you will find in reading what is found in this book.

Some may ask, “What poetry shall I read, and where shall I find it?” The best poetry I know, and that which is pure, unadulterated, and unaffected, is found in two wonderful books opened by God and placed where all may read and steep their souls in the marvel and beauty of their contents. I speak of the book of the human heart and, second, the book of God’s out of doors.

What a pity with these two volumes open before us with pages and pages of living illustrations, so few of us are able to trace their beauty or catch the fleeting and mystical messages they are singing! Do not make the mistake that we are to find poetry in the broad daylight only-open and strong in the full tide of ex­pression throbbing through the basic emotions of the human heart in ecstatic joy or crushing sorrow.

There are a thousand variations of poetry in­timated by most commonplace things—the drooping form of a tired mother; the windblown hair of a laugh­ing child; the restless or startled movements of a sleep­ing babe; the tears on the face of a disappointed boy; the indescribable lovelight in the eyes of a maiden; the brave walk of a little fellow as he leaves mother for the first day at school; the long look (that of a seer) in the mother’s eyes as she watches the last little one trudge manfully away stoutly holding to the hand of his big sister. That is poetry.

So it is in nature. Not only in the broad open ways of the earth, but we find it everywhere—in the rolling sea, restless and unsubdued; the broad, sweeping prairie; the towering mountains reaching upward, ever upward; the tawny desert fastness alluring in its magic spell. Nature is lavish in her beauty. She fills the very air with her singing and strews broadcast poems too lovely to be sung. We find them everywhere—in brown leaves huddled in the fence corner like beggars ashamed of other men; a corn shock ragged and torn, leaning against the western sky like a forlorn wigwam; a brush heap gleaming like crystal after the frost and sleet have worked magic there; the delicate fingers of an elm making lace too intricate and delicate for any imitation; the sky answering itself in a pool by the roadside; an ash heap where the “beauty for ashes” has been born from the fires of reduction; the creak­ing of dry snow under foot, runner, or wheel—have you ever heard a sound just like it? the smell of fresh earth where the farmer turns the sod; an oriole’s nest swinging in the elm—a veritable castle in the air; the plaintive, half-human call of the whip-poor-will when twilight spins her dusky curtains of loveliness; the drip, drip, drip of the rain from the eaves when one is snug in bed and the world seems miles away—here is poetry.