formity with the requirements of formal verse; they have a rhythm akin to the rhythm of poetry. Versifying is correctly described as a process which is essential to the making of poetry. Measured rhythm is its life. In primitive poetry the rhythm has its physical counterpart; in the poetry of civilisation this physical element softens into more delicate and pleasing effects. But everywhere verse, as measured rhythm, has its common end. The inner effect it has, the final end it serves, is to support, enforce, and help unify the new and original groupings of images which the poet makes. The vivid language of the poet, his forceful verb, his illuminating adjective, is designed to startle an old image into life or to create a new one; the rhythm into which his language falls, the elusive but soul-moving music that pervades his verse, is but a golden thread on which he strings his pearls. By subtle illusion the poet leads us to believe that we are merely being stirred with music, but, even as he led us all unconsciously to create worlds of imagination while we thought we were doing it ourselves, so he casts the magic of his musical language upon us and leads us, all unwittingly but still with deep joy, to bind in closer unity the images which he has enabled us to call before our minds. 1 CHAPTER VI The Nature of Poetry In the life of the same individual there is succession and not absolute unity: a man is called the same, and yet in the short interval which elapses between youth and age, he is undergoing a perpetual process of loss and reparation, which is true not only of the body, but also of the soul, whose habits, opinions, desires, pleasures, pains and fears, never remain the same in any one of us, but are always coming and going.-PLATO. CHAPTER VI THE NATURE OF POETRY I. OUR second question, "What are the processes which go to make poetry what it is?" is now answered; we have seen what they are and what they do. Personalising the poet's self-projection into things and people, the reading of his own experience, restricted only by truth, into all that is about him, and the reflection of this in the images he uses; combining the grouping, under the final test of truth, in a new and independent way, of images which stand for things and persons into which the poet has projected his life; versifying -the subtle device of throwing language into rhythmical form in order, through its inner effect, to enforce and support these new combinations;— these are the essential processes which go to make poetry what it is. But, as I have said, these processes are not separate and distinct; they do not work independently; rather, they are but parts of a total creative activity which moves as a whole. An advantage is, however, gained through the logical distinction of these |