We have learned how to read him. We have ceased to expect
that which he cannot give. He has the merit of just moral
perception, but not that of deft poetic execution. How would Milton
curl his lip at such slipshod newspaper style! Many of his poems,
as, for example, the Rylstone Doe, might be all improvised. Nothing
of Milton, nothing of Marvell, of Herbert, of Dryden, could be.
These are such verses as in a just state of culture should be _vers
de Societe_, such as every gentleman could write, but none would
think of printing or of claiming the poet's laurel on their merit.
The Pindar, the Shakspeare, the Dante, whilst they have the just and
open soul, have also the eye to see the dimmest star that glimmers in
the Milky Way, the serratures of every leaf, the test objects of the
microscope, and then the tongue to utter the same things in words
that engrave them on all the ears of mankind. The poet demands all
gifts and not one or two only.
The poet, like the electric rod, must reach from a point nearer
to the sky than all surrounding objects down to the earth, and down
to the dark wet soil, or neither is of use.
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