XII. POETS. - IN the Preface to the second edition of the "Lyrical Ballads," a long preface which, in aiming to vindicate the poems there printed against presumptuous and ignorant judgments, becomes a comprehensive and acute disquisition on poetry,-in this preface Wordsworth says, that what distinguishes these poems from the popular poems of the day is this: "The feeling therein developed gives importance to the action and situation, and not the action and situation to the feeling." When the poet of more ambition than inspiration sits down to write, it is to put into captivating verse a subject he has chosen, because, by its historic interest or its present vogue, or by the social elevation of its chief agents, or the exciting character of its incidents, it promises to be at once attractive. The poet of more inspiration than ambition does not choose his subject: his subject chooses him. His susceptibility being agitated by a warm breath in wardly breathed upon itself, or by some outward occasion, in harmony with its present mood, a form begins to crystallize, so alive with feeling that it takes tyrannous possession of him, holding at its beck all his best powers of plastic thought to round itself into concrete existence and proportion. Genuine poetry is thus always a creation; that is, the soul of the poet is generative enough to vitalize into a melodious visibility its own images, or to give new life to images supplied from without. Hence, in true poetry, so true that it is to endure and endure ever fresh, the feeling must give all the importance to any subject, whether the subject be Achilles or a daisy. Which is as much as to say: the fountain of poetry is the heart of the individual poet, whose æsthetic motions his art moulds into shapes, giving a body to what, but for his art, would be airy nothings. But if his heart (that is, his sensibility) is not deep and broad, and pure enough to furnish creative streams, fresh streams never seen before, and that, being nevertheless ambitious of poetic fame, he collects, through his art (that is, his intellect polished by some sense of the beautiful) and uses as material, not creations of his own brain, which has not quickening power to furnish them, but from the large common property of accumulated floating poetic capital, or from the treasures stored in other poets, he draws his ideas as well as his forms, in that case he writes from a reservoir, not from a fountain. And thence, however captivating for a time his art and fancy and knowledge may make his verse, its gloss soon wears off, and not having the sparkle imparted by strong inward soul-power, it loses after a while its look of life, and shows for what it is, not original, but derivative, poetry. In one of his letters, commenting upon the "White Doe of Rylstone," Wordsworth writes: "The poetry, if there be any in the work, proceeds, as it ought to do, from the soul of man, communicating its creative energies to the images of the external world." Full and pure and urgent must be the psychic fountain-head, if the streams thence proceeding are to be lively and lasting. In another letter he writes: "There is scarcely one of my poems that does not aim to direct the attention to some moral sentiment, or to some general principle, or law of thought, or of our intellectual constitution." Observe that this is a totally different thing from writing a poem with the direct purpose of inculcating a moral. Wordsworth was too good an artist for that. Intimate with nature from hav ing such joy in her, and his mental organization being predominantly spiritual and moral, and noting the unity there is in all creation, he delights to fuse the affections of the mind with natural objects and appearances, and to body forth the union in poems remarkable for a grand simplicity of style and truth of sentiment. Wordsworth looked upon the vocation of the poet to be, to elevate and purify the mind. To a friend he writes: "You have given me praise for having reflected faithfully in my poems the feelings of human nature. But a great poet ought to do more than this; he ought, in a certain degree, to rectify men's feelings, to give them new compositions of feeling, to render their feelings more sane, pure, and permanent; in short, more consonant to nature, that is, to eternal nature, and the great moving spirit of things. He ought to travel before men occasionally as well as at their sides." On another occasion he said: "Every great poet is a teacher: I wish either to be considered as a teacher or as nothing." And through the union in him of intellectual amplitude with depth and breadth and truth of feeling, and rare poetic gift, he is a teacher, a gracious, beneficent teacher. He rebathes the world of the English tongue in his own spirit, invigorating it, elevating it, and educating it with a new lesson. And this is the exalted function of all great poets. How the glorious Greeks were freshened and strengthened by the Homeric songs, a new thing under the sun! How the soul of Dante warmed and widened the soul of Italy! Who can compute the force that Shakespeare added to England? Who can weigh what he gives to all who speak the English tongue? Is not Germany another and a wiser Germany since Goethe? So much has been said in these pages in commendation, just commendation, I trust, of Wordsworth, that he invites and can bear some disparagement. The mention of Goethe we make the occasion to pick a crow with him. He is unjust to Goethe. It may be doubted whether, during that very cold winter in Goslar, he mastered German sufficiently to enjoy Goethe's verse. We have seen that he was.. busy there upon reminiscences of "Lucy," and upon "Poets' Epitaphs," securing with his pen these and other treasures for posterity. He did not take to German modes of thought and life. In the "Memoir" there is a chapter of reminiscences of conversations with Wordsworth, furnished chiefly by two cultivated neighbors, Lady Richardson and Mrs. Davy. In an |