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diff --git a/9850.txt b/9850.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..00fa416 --- /dev/null +++ b/9850.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1563 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lyric, by John Drinkwater + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Lyric + An Essay + +Author: John Drinkwater + +Posting Date: October 24, 2011 [EBook #9850] +Release Date: February, 2006 +First Posted: October 24, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LYRIC *** + + + + +Produced by Thierry Alberto and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + + + +THE LYRIC + +AN ESSAY BY JOHN DRINKWATER + + +1922 + + + +CONTENTS + + +What is Poetry + +The Best Words in the Best Order + +The Degrees of Poetry + +Paradise Lost + +What is Lyric + +The Classification of Poetry + +Lyric Forms + +Song + +The Popularity of Lyric + +Conclusion + + + + +WHAT IS POETRY? + + +If you were to ask twenty intelligent people, "What is the Thames?" the +answer due to you from each would be--"a river." And yet this would hardly +be matter to satisfy your enquiring mind. You would more probably say, +"What do you know of the Thames?" or, "Describe the Thames to me." This +would bring you a great variety of opinions, many dissertations on +geological and national history, many words in praise of beauty, many +personal confessions. Here would be the revelation of many minds +approaching a great subject in as many manners, confirming and +contradicting each other, making on the whole some impression of cumulative +judgment, giving you many clues to what might be called the truth, no one +of them by itself coming near to anything like full knowledge, and the +final word would inevitably be left unsaid. + +The question, "What is poetry?" has been answered innumerable times, often +by the subtlest and clearest minds, and as many times has it been answered +differently. The answer in itself now makes a large and distinguished +literature to which, full as it is of keen intelligence and even of +constructive vision, we can return with unstaling pleasure. The very poets +themselves, it is true, lending their wits to the debate, have left the +answer incomplete, as it must--not in the least unhappily--always remain. +And yet, if we consider the matter for a moment, we find that all this +wisdom, prospering from Sidney's _Apology_ until to-day, does not +strictly attempt to answer the question that is put. It does not tell us +singly what poetry is, but it speculates upon the cause and effect of +poetry. It enquires into the impulse that moves the poet to creation and +describes, as far as individual limitations will allow, the way in which +the poet's work impresses the world. When Wordsworth says "poetry is the +breath and finer spirit of all knowledge," he is, exactly, in one intuitive +word, telling us how poetry comes into being, directing us with an inspired +gesture to its source, and not strictly telling us what it is; and so +Shelley tells us in his fiery eloquence of the divine functions of poetry. +But poetry is, in its naked being and apart from its cause and effect, a +certain use of words, and, remembering this simple fact, there has been +one perfect and final answer to the question, "What is poetry?" It was +Coleridge's: "Poetry--the best words in the best order." + + + +THE BEST WORDS IN THE BEST ORDER + + +This is the fundamental thing to be remembered when considering the art of +poetry as such. The whole question of what causes a poet to say this or +that and of the impression that is thence made upon us can be definitely +narrowed down to the question "How does he say it?" The manner of his +utterance is, indeed, the sole evidence before us. To know anything of +a poet but his poetry is, so far as the poetry is concerned, to know +something that may be entertaining, even delightful, but is certainly +inessential. The written word is everything. If it is an imperfect word, no +external circumstance can heighten its value as poetry. We may at times, +knowing of honourable and inspiriting things in a poet's life, read into +his imperfect word a value that it does not possess. When we do this our +judgment of poetry is inert; we are not getting pleasure from his work +because it is poetry, but for quite other reasons. It may be a quite +wholesome pleasure, but it is not the high aesthetic pleasure which the +people who experience it generally believe to be the richest and most vivid +of all pleasures because it is experienced by a mental state that is more +eager and masterful than any other. Nor is our judgment acute when we +praise a poet's work because it chimes with unexpected precision to some +particular belief or experience of our own or because it directs us by +suggestion to something dear to our personal affections. Again the poet is +giving us delight, but not the delight of poetry. We have to consider this +alone--the poet has something to say: does he say it in the best words in +the best order? By that, and by that alone, is he to be judged. + +For it is to be remembered that this achievement of the best words in the +best order is, perhaps, the rarest to which man can reach, implying as it +does a coincidence of unfettered imaginative ecstasy with superb mental +poise. The poet's perfect expression is the token of a perfect experience; +what he says in the best possible way he has felt in the best possible way, +that is, completely. He has felt it with an imaginative urgency so great as +to quicken his brain to this flawless ordering of the best words, and it +is that ordering and that alone which communicates to us the ecstasy, and +gives us the supreme delight of poetry. It should here be added that poetry +habitually takes the form of verse. It is, perhaps, profitless to attempt +any analysis of the emotional law that directs this choice, nor need it +arbitrarily be said that poetry must of necessity be verse. But it is a +fact, sufficiently founded on experience, that the intensity of vision that +demands and achieves nothing less than the best words in the best order for +its expression does instinctively select the definitely patterned rhythm +of verse as being the most apt for its purpose. We find, then, that the +condition of poetry as defined by Coleridge implies exactly what the +trained judgment holds poetry to be. It implies the highest attainable +intensity of vision, which, by the sanction of almost universal example, +casts its best ordering of the best words into the form of verse. Ruskin +wrote, with fine spiritual ardour-- + +"... women of England! ...do not think your daughters can be trained to the +truth of their own human beauty, while the pleasant places, which God +made at once for their schoolroom and their playground, lie desolate and +defiled. You cannot baptize them rightly in those inch-deep founts of +yours, unless you baptize them also in the sweet waters which the great +Lawgiver strikes forth for ever from the rocks of your native land--waters +which a Pagan would have worshipped in their purity, and you worship only +with pollution. You cannot lead your children faithfully to those narrow +axe-hewn church altars of yours, while the dark azure altars in heaven--the +mountains that sustain your island throne--mountains on which a Pagan would +have seen the powers of heaven rest in every wreathed cloud--remain for you +without inscription; altars built, not to, but by an unknown God." + +Here we have, we may say, words in their best order--Coleridge's equally +admirable definition of prose. It is splendid prose, won only from great +nobility of emotion. But it is not poetry, not the best words in the best +order announcing that the feeling expressed has been experienced with the +highest intensity possible to the mind of man. The tenderness for earth and +its people and the heroic determination not to watch their defilement in +silence, have been deeply significant things to Ruskin, moving him to +excellent words. But could they be more strictly experienced, yet more +deeply significant, shaping yet more excellent words? Blake gives us the +answer: + + And did those feet in ancient time + Walk upon England's mountains green? + And was the holy Lamb of God + On England's pleasant pastures seen? + + And did the Countenance Divine + Shine forth upon our clouded hills? + And was Jerusalem builded here + Among these dark Satanic mills? + + Bring me my bow of burning gold! + Bring me my arrows of desire! + Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold! + Bring me my chariot of fire! + + I will not cease from mental fight, + Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, + Till we have built Jerusalem + In England's green and pleasant land. + +It may be suggested that, for their purpose, Ruskin's words are perfectly +chosen, that as a direct social charge they achieve their purpose better +than any others that could have been shaped. Even if we allow this and +do not press, as we very reasonably might, the reply that merely in this +direction Blake's poem working, as is the manner of all great art, with +tremendous but secret vigour upon the imagination of the people, has a +deeper and more permanent effect than Ruskin's prose, we still remember +that the sole purpose of poetry is to produce the virile spiritual +activity that we call aesthetic delight and that to do this is the highest +achievement to which the faculties of man can attain. If by "the best +words" we mean anything, we must mean the best words for the highest +possible purpose. To take an analogy: if we say that a democratic +government is the best kind of government, we mean that it most completely +fulfills the highest function of a government--the realisation of the will +of the people. But it is also a function of government to organise the +people and--although, just as we may think that Blake's poem finally +beats Ruskin's prose on Ruskin's own ground, we may think, too, that the +government that best represents the people will finally best organise +the people--it may quite plausibly be said that in this business an +aristocratic or militant government will, in an imperfectly conditioned +civilisation (such as that of the world to-day), excel a democratic +government. Nevertheless, we still say with an easy mind that a democratic +government is the best government, without qualification, since it excels +in the highest purpose of government. Clearly Coleridge implies, and +reasonably enough, an elaboration such as this in his definition--the best +words in the best order. To say that Blake and Ruskin, in those passages, +were giving expression to dissimilar experiences is but to emphasise the +distinction between prose and poetry. The closest analysis discovers no +difference between the essential thought of the one and the other. But +Blake projected the thought through a mood of higher intensity, and, where +Ruskin perfectly ordered admirable words, he perfectly ordered the +best words. It is the controlling mood that differs, not the material +controlled. Hence it is that still another mind, starting from the same +radical perception, might transfigure it through a mood as urgent as +Blake's and produce yet another poem of which it could strictly be said +that here again were the best words in the best order. We should then +have three men moved by the same thought; in the one case the imaginative +shaping of the thought would fail to reach the point at which the record +and communication of ecstasy become the chief intention, and the expression +would be prose; in each of the other cases the shaping would pass beyond +that point, and there would be two separate moods expressed, each in the +terms of poetry. + +One further qualification remains to be made. By words we must mean, as +Coleridge must have meant, words used for a purpose which they alone can +serve. Poetry is the communication through words of certain experiences +that can be communicated in no other way. If you ask me the time, and I +say--it is six o'clock, it may be said that I am using the best words in +the best order, and that, although the thought in my mind is incapable of +being refined into the higher aesthetic experience of which we have spoken, +my answer is, if Coleridge was right, poetry. But these are not, in our +present sense, words at all. They have no power which is peculiar to +themselves. If I show you my watch you are answered just as effectively. + +That there is no absolute standard for reference does not matter. All +aesthetic appreciation and opinion can but depend upon our judgment, +fortified by knowledge of what is, by cumulative consent, the best that has +been done. There can be no proof that Blake's lyric is composed of the best +words in the best order; only a conviction, accepted by our knowledge and +judgment, that it is so. And the conviction is, exactly, the conviction +that the mood to which the matter has been subjected has been of such a +kind as to achieve an intensity beyond which we cannot conceive the mind as +passing, and it follows that there may be--as indeed there are--many poems +dealing with the same subject each of which fulfills the obligations of +poetry as defined by Coleridge. For while the subjects of poetry are few +and recurrent, the moods of man are infinitely various and unstable. It is +the same in all arts. If six masters paint the same landscape and under +the same conditions, there will be one subject but six visions, and +consequently six different interpretations, each one of which may, given +the mastery, satisfy us as being perfect; perfect, that is, not as the +expression of a subject which has no independent artistic existence, but as +the expression of the mood in which the subject is realised. So it is in +poetry. All we ask is that the mood recorded shall impress us as having +been of the kind that exhausts the imaginative capacity; if it fails to do +this the failure will announce itself either in prose or in insignificant +verse. + + + +THE DEGREES OF POETRY + + +The question that necessarily follows these reflections is--Are there +degrees in poetry? Since a short lyric may completely satisfy the +requirements of poetry as here set down, announcing itself to have been +created in a poetic or supremely intensified mood, can poetry be said at +any time to go beyond this? If we accept these conclusions, can a thing so +slight, yet so exquisite, so obviously authentic in source as: + + When I a verse shall make, + Know I have pray'd thee, + For old religion's sake, + Saint Ben, to aid me. + + Make the way smooth for me, + When I, thy Herrick, + Honouring thee, on my knee + Offer my lyric. + + Candles I'll give to thee, + And a new altar, + And thou, Saint Ben, shall be + Writ in my Psalter, + +be said to be less definitely poetry than _Paradise Lost_ or in any +essentially poetic way below it? The logical answer is, no; and I think it +is the right one. In considering it we should come to an understanding of +the nature of lyric, the purpose of this essay. But first let us see how +far it may be justifiable. + + + +PARADISE LOST + + +It is commonly asserted and accepted that _Paradise Lost_ is among the +two or three greatest English poems; it may justly be taken as the type of +supreme poetic achievement in our literature. What are the qualities by +virtue of which this claim is made, and allowed by every competent judge? +Firstly there is the witness of that ecstasy of mood of which we have +spoken. + + His praise, ye Winds, that from four quarters blow, + Breathe soft or loud: and wave your tops, ye Pines, + With every plant, in sign of worship wave. + Fountains, and ye that warble, as ye flow, + Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise. + Join voices all ye living Souls. Ye Birds, + That, singing, up to Heaven-gate ascend, + Bear on your wings and in your notes his praise. + Ye that in waters glide, and ye that walk + The earth, and stately tread, or lowly creep, + Witness if I be silent, morn or even, + To hill or valley, fountain, or fresh shade, + Made vocal by my song, and taught his praise. + +This note of high imaginative tension is persistent throughout the poem, +and that it should be so masterfully sustained is in itself cause for +delighted admiration. But to be constant in a virtue is not to enhance +its quality. Superbly furnished as _Paradise Lost_ is with this +imaginative beauty, the beauty is as rich and unquestionable in the few +pages of _Lycidas_; there is less of it, that is all. And who shall +say that it is less ecstatic or less perfect in the little orison to Saint +Ben? You may prefer Milton's manner, but then you may, with equal reason, +prefer Herrick's, being grateful for what Keats announced to be truth, in +whatever shape you may find it. In any case we cannot, on this ground, +assign a lower place to the poet who could order those words "religion's," +"Saint Ben," "Psalter" and the rest of them, with such inspired good +fortune. And yet we know that _Paradise Lost_ is a greater work than +this little flight of certain song, greater, too, than the poet's own +elegy. There is an explanation. + +Of all the energies of man, that which I will anticipate my argument by +calling the poetic energy, the energy that created Herrick's song and the +distinguishing qualities of that passage from Milton, is the rarest and the +most highly, if not the most generally, honoured; we have only to think of +the handful of men who at any time out of all the millions can bring this +perfect expression to a mood of the highest imaginative intensity, to know +that the honour is justly bestowed. So splendid a thing is success in +this matter that failure, if it is matched with a will for sincerity and +intelligence of purpose, will often bring a man some durable fame. But the +energies of man are manifold, and while we rightly set the poetic energy +above the rest, there are others which are only less rare, and in their +most notable manifestations yielding to it alone in worthiness of homage +which will, indeed, often be more generally paid. Such an energy is the +profound intellectual control of material, as distinct from profound +emotional sensitiveness to material; the capacity for ordering great masses +of detail into a whole of finely balanced and duly related proportions. +Caesar and Napoleon had it, marshalling great armies to perfectly conceived +designs; Fielding had it, using it to draw a multitude of character and +event into the superbly shaped lines of his story; the greatest political +leaders have had it; Cromwell had it, organising an enthusiasm; Elizabeth, +organising a national adventure.[1] Again, there is the energy +of morality, ardently desiring justice and right fellowship, sublimely +lived by men who have made goodness great, like Lincoln, sublimely spoken +by men who made sermons passionate, like Ruskin and Carlyle. To take one +other instance, there is the highly specialised energy that delights in the +objective perception of differentiations of character, the chief energy of +the deftest wits such as Samuel Johnson and the best comic dramatists. + +[1: It may be necessary to point out that while the poetic energy +does not include this architectural power, the intellectual co-ordination +of large masses of material, it does, of course, include the shapely +control of the emotion which is its being. It is, indeed, difficult to see +precisely what can be meant by the suggestion that is often made that the +emotions can ever be translated into poetic form wholly without the play of +intellect. If the emotion is intense enough for the creation of poetry at +all, it will inevitably call up the intellectual power necessary to its +shaping, otherwise it would be ineffectually diffused. Mr. John Bailey, in +his masterly if sometimes provoking essay on Milton says, in the midst +of some admirable remarks on this subject, "It has been said by a living +writer that 'when reason is subsidiary to emotion verse is the right means +of expression, and, when emotion to reason, prose.' This is roughly true, +though the poetry of mere emotion is poor stuff." I would suggest that +poetry of emotion, in this sense, does not and could not exist. Bad verse +is merely the evidence of both emotion and intellect that are, so to +speak, below poetic power, not of emotion divorced from intellect, which +evaporates unrecorded.] + +Any one of these energies, greatly manifested, will compel a just +admiration; not so great an admiration as the poetic energy, which is +witness of the highest urgency of individual life, of all things the most +admirable, but still great. If, further, we consider any one of these +energies by itself, we shall see that if it were co-existent with the +poetic energy, the result would be likely to be that, in contact with +so masterful a force, it would become yet more emphatic, and so a thing +arresting in itself would become yet more notable under its new dominion. +And so it is. Fielding's architectural power is a yet more wonderful thing +in Sophocles, where it is allied to poetic energy; Ruskin's moral fervour +is, for all its nobility, less memorable than Wordsworth's and Ben Jonson +defines character more pungently than Sheridan. These energies remain, +nevertheless, distinct from the poetic energy. When, however, a poet is +endowed not alone with his own particular gift of poetry, but also with +some of these other energies--of which there are many--his work very +rightly is allowed an added greatness. It is so with _Paradise Lost_. +Of the three energies other than the poetic that I have mentioned, Milton +had rich measure of two and something of the third. No man has ever +excelled him either in power of intellectual control or in moral passion, +and he was not without some sense of character. Consequently we get in +his great poem, not only the dominating poetic quality which is the chief +thing, enabling the poet to realise his vision (or mood) perfectly, but +also the spectacle of a great number of perfectly realised visions being +related to each other with excellent harmony; we get, further, a great +moral exaltation--again perfectly realised by the poetic energy, and we +get, finally, considerable subtlety--far more than is generally allowed--of +psychological detail. From all these things, the architectonics, the zeal +for justice and the revelation of character, we get an added and wholesome +delight which gives Milton's work a place of definitely greater eminence +than Herrick's song in the record of human activity. In effect, Milton +besides being a poet, which is the greatest of all distinctions, becomes, +by possession of those other qualities, a great man as well, and I think +that this is really what we mean when we speak of a great poet. Without his +poetic faculty, although he would fall in the scale of human distinction, +which is not at all the same thing as renown, below, say, so humble a +personality yet so true a poet as John Clare[2], Milton would still be a +great man, while Herrick without his poetry would be indistinguishable from +the crowd. And the great man is as clearly evident in Milton's poetry as he +is clearly not evident in Herrick's. + +[2: It may be asked: "Do you really think that a poet who has left +no other record of himself than a page or two of songs, even perfect songs, +can claim a greater distinction than a great man who is not a poet?" Let me +say, once for all, that I do think so. To have written one perfect song +is to have given witness and the only kind of witness (in common with the +media of other arts) that is finally authoritative, that at least one +supremely exacting mood has been perfectly realised; that is to say, one +moment of life has been perfectly experienced. And since, with our human +conception, we can see no good or desirable end beyond the perfect +experience of life, the man who proves to us that he has done this, no +matter though it has been but for a moment, is more distinguished--that is, +more definitely set apart in his own achievement--than the man who, with +whatever earnestness and nobility, has but proved to us that he desired +this perfection of experience, even though the desire is exalted by the +most heroic altruism.] + + + +WHAT IS LYRIC? + + +And so we have Milton and Herrick, both poets, the one a great man, the +other not. It is a wide difference. Great men are rare, poets are rarer, +but the great man who is a poet, transfiguring his greatness, is the rarest +of all events. Milton is one of perhaps a dozen names in the history of the +world's literature, Herrick--still with a fine enough distinction--one of +something under two hundred in the history of our own. And yet they are +left on equal terms in the possession of the purely poetic energy. Milton's +achievement outweighs Herrick's, but for the reasons that I have mentioned, +and not because poetry grows better by accumulation or because it is +possible to prove, or even to satisfy any considerable majority of good +judges, that-- + + Ye have been fresh and green, + Ye have been filled with flowers, + And ye the walks have been + Where maids have spent their hours. + You have beheld how they + With wicker arks did come + To kiss and bear away + The richer cowslips home. + You've heard them sweetly sing, + And seen them in a round: + Each virgin like a spring, + With honeysuckles crown'd. + But now we see none here + Whose silvery feet did tread, + And with dishevell'd hair + Adorn'd this smoother mead. + Like unthrifts, having spent + Your stock and needy grown, + You've left here to lament + Your poor estates, alone, + +is inferior, in specifically poetic quality, to + + Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more, + For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead, + Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor; + So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, + And yet anon repairs his drooping head, + And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore + Flames in the forehead of the morning sky. + +We come, then, to the consideration of this specific quality that +distinguishes what we recognise as poetry from all other verbal expression. +Returning for a moment to _Paradise Lost_, we find that here is a work +of art of which the visible and external sign is words. That it has three +qualities--there may be more, but it is not to the point--architectural +power, moral exaltation and a sense of character, each of which, although +it may be more impressive when presented as it were under the auspices of +the poetic quality, can exist independently of it, as in _Tom Jones_, +_Unto This Last_, and _The School for Scandal_ respectively; +that there remains a last and dominating quality, which is not related to +intellectual fusion of much diverse material, as is the first of those +other qualities, or to the kind of material, as are the other two, but to +extreme activity of the perceptive mood upon whatever object it may be +directed, remembering that this activity is highly exacting as to the +worthiness of objects in which it can concern itself. We find, further, +that this is a quality which it has in common not with _Tom Jones_ +or _Unto This Last_, but with a thing so inconsiderable in all other +respects as those songs of Herrick's. And in each case we find that the +token of this quality is a conviction that here are words that could not +have been otherwise chosen or otherwise placed; that here is an expression +to rearrange which would be to destroy it--a conviction that we by no means +have about the prose of Fielding and Ruskin, admirable as it is. We find, +in short, that this quality equals a maximum of imaginative pressure +freeing itself in the best words in the best order. And this quality is the +specific poetic quality; the presence or absence of which should decide for +us, without any other consideration whatever, whether what is before us is +or is not poetry. And it seems to me, further, that what we have in our +minds when we speak of lyric is precisely this same quality; that lyric and +the expression of pure poetic energy unrelated to other energies are the +same thing. + + + +THE CLASSIFICATION OF POETRY + + +It is not yet the place to discuss the question of lyric forms--to consider +what kind of thing it is that people mean when they speak of "a lyric." +First we must consider the commonly accepted opinion that a lyric is an +expression of personal emotion, with its implication that there is an +essential difference between a lyric and, say, dramatic or narrative +poetry. A lyric, it is true, is the expression of personal emotion, but +then so is all poetry, and to suppose that there are several kinds of +poetry, differing from each other in essence, is to be deceived by wholly +artificial divisions which have no real being. To talk of dramatic +poetry, epic poetry and narrative poetry is to talk of three different +things--epic, drama and narrative; but each is combined with a fourth thing +in common, which is poetry, which, in turn, is in itself of precisely the +same nature as the lyric of which we are told that it is yet a further +kind of poetry. Let us here take a passage from a play and consider it in +relation to this suggestion: + + +CLOWN. I wish you all joy of the worm. + +CLEOPATRA. Farewell. + +CLOWN. You must think this, look you, that the worm will do his kind. + +CLEOPATRA. Ay, ay; farewell. + +CLOWN. Look you, the worm is not to be trusted but in the keeping of + wise people; for indeed there is no goodness in the worm. + +CLEOPATRA. Take thou no care; it shall be heeded. + +CLOWN. Very good. Give it nothing, I pray you, for it is not worth + the feeding. + +CLEOPATRA. Will it eat me? + +CLOWN. You must not think I am so simple but I know the devil himself + will not eat a woman; I know that a woman is a dish for the + gods, if the devil dress her not. But, truly, these same + whoreson devils do the gods great harm in their women, for + in every ten that they make the devils mar five. + +CLEOPATRA. Well, get thee gone; farewell. + +CLOWN. Yes, forsooth; I wish you joy of the worm. + + _Re-enter_ IRAS. + +CLEOPATRA. Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have + Immortal longings in me; now no more + The juice of Egypt's grape shall moist this lip. + Yare, yare, good Iras; quick. Methinks I hear + Antony call; I see him rouse himself + To praise my noble act; I hear him mock + The luck of Caesar, which the gods give men + To excuse their after wrath; husband, I come: + Now to that name my courage prove my title! + I am fire and air; my other elements + I give to baser life. So; have you done? + Come then, and take the last warmth of my lips. + Farewell, kind Charmian; Iras, long farewell. + +I have chosen this passage not because of its singular beauty, but because +it is peculiarly to our present purpose. In the first place, Shakespeare, +by using both prose and verse--which he by no means always does under +similar circumstances--makes a clear formal division between what is poetry +and what is not. It is all magnificently contrived drama, but down to the +Clown's exit it is not poetry. The significance of the Clown does not +demand of Shakespeare's imaginative mood that highest activity that would +force him to poetry. The short dialogue has great excellence, but not this +kind of excellence. The fact that it occurs in what we call a poetic drama +does not make it poetry; its fine dramatic significance does not give it +poetic significance. We are living in a world of dramatic poetry, and +yet we have here a perfectly clear distinction between the drama and the +poetry, since we definitely have the one without the other. Then, when +Cleopatra begins her farewell speech, we have the addition of poetry and +a continuance of the drama. And this speech illustrates perfectly the +suggestion that the quality which is commonly said to be exclusively lyric +is the quality of all poetry. It illustrates it in a particularly +emphatic way. For not only is it unquestionably poetry, but it is also +unquestionably dramatic. Very clearly the poet is not here speaking out of +his own actual experience; it is a woman speaking, one who is a queen: who +is wrecked upon the love of kings: who knows that she is about to die a +strange and sudden death. So that if the impulse of the poetry in poetic +drama were essentially different from the impulse of lyric, if the personal +experience which is said to be this latter were something differing in kind +from the experience which is the source of what is called dramatic poetry, +then here is a case where the essential difference could surely be +perceived and defined. It cannot be defined, for it does not exist. It is a +fallacy to suppose that experience is any the less personal because it is +concerned with an event happening to someone else. If my friend falls to a +mortal sickness my experience, if my imaginative faculty is acute, is as +poignant as his; if he achieves some great good fortune, my delight is as +vigorous as his. And if I am a poet, and choose to express the grief or +pleasure as if it were his concern and not mine, the experience does not +become one whit less personal to me. You may, if it is convenient, call the +result lyric if I speak as though the experience is my own and dramatic +poetry if I speak of it as being his, but what you are really saying is +that in the one case I am producing pure poetry, and in the other I am +producing poetry in conjunction with dramatic statement. The poetic quality +is the same in either case. Cleopatra's speech is notable for two things: +its dramatic significance, which is admittedly contrived by Shakespeare, +and its poetry which springs from an intensity of experience which is +clearly, unless we juggle with words, Shakespeare's and not Cleopatra's. +The fact that the material upon which the poet's mood has worked has not +been confined to some event that has happened to himself but has included +the condition of an imagined being does not alter the radical significance +of his experience or influence the essential nature of its product. The +poetic energy may operate on many things through a million moods, but the +character of the energy is immutable. And when we speak of lyric, thinking +of the direct and simple activity of this energy unmodified by the process +of any other energies, we shall, if we get our mind clear about it, see +that we mean pure poetry, and we shall recognise this poetry as being +constant in its essential properties in whatever association we may +henceforth find it. + +If it is allowed, as, for the reasons I have attempted to set out, I think +it rightly may be, that the purely poetic energy is not a variable quality, +that of any given expression of a man's mental activity it can definitely +be said that it is or is not poetry, there remains one question to be +answered,--Can one poem be better than another, if both are truly poems? +Or can one poet, by reason of his poetry, be better than another poet by +reason of his? Is Keats, for example, a better poet than Suckling? Every +good judge of poetry, if that question were put, would be likely to answer +without hesitation--Yes, he is. And yet the answer, although the reason for +it may be found and, in a sense, allowed, does not in any way discredit the +principle that has been defined. With a passage from each of these poets at +his best before us, let us see what we find. This from Keats: + + Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! + No hungry generations tread thee down; + The voice I hear this passing night was heard + In ancient days by emperor and clown: + + Perhaps the self-same song that found a path + Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home + She stood in tears amid the alien corn; + The same that oft-times hath + Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam + Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. + +And this from Suckling: + + Why so pale and wan, fond lover? + Prythee, why so pale? + Will, when looking well can't move her, + Looking ill prevail? + Prythee, why so pale? + + Why so dull and mute, young sinner? + Prythee, why so mute? + Will, when speaking well can't win her, + Saying nothing do't? + Prythee, why so mute? + + Quit, quit, for shame! This will not move; + This cannot take her. + If of herself she will not love, + Nothing can make her: + The Devil take her! + +The poetic energy in Keats is here entirely undisturbed. I do not mean that +it is not united to any other energy--though here it happens not to be--as +in poetic drama, where it is united to the dramatic energy and is still +undisturbed in its full activity, but that it is here freely allowed to +work itself out to its consummation without any concession, conscious or +unconscious, to any mood that is not non-poetic but definitely anti-poetic, +in which case, although unchanged in its nature, it would be constrained in +a hostile atmosphere. Keats's words are struck out of a mood that tolerates +nothing but its own full life and is concerned only to satisfy that life by +uncompromising expression. The result is pure poetry, or lyric. But when +we come to Suckling's lines we find that there is a difference. The poetic +energy is still here. Suckling has quite clearly experienced something in +a mood of more than common intensity. It does not matter that the material +which has been subjected to the mood is not in itself very profound or +passionate. Another poet, Wither, with material curiously like Suckling's +to work upon, achieves poetry as unquestionable if not so luxuriant as +Keats's. + + Shall I, wasting in despair, + Die because a woman's fair? + Or make pale my cheeks with care + Because another's rosy are? + Be she fairer than the day, + Or the flowery mead in May-- + If she think not well of me + What care I how fair she be? + +To object that there is an emotional gaiety in this which is foreign to +Keats is but to state a personal preference. It is, indeed, a preference +which is common and founded upon very general experience. Most of us have, +from the tradition and circumstance of our own lives, a particular sympathy +with the grave and faintly melancholy beauty which is the most recurrent +note in fine poetry throughout the world, but this does not establish this +particular strain of beauty as being in any way essential to poetry. It is +related to an almost universal condition, but it is a fertile source of +poetry, not one with the poetic energy itself. It would be absurd to impugn +a man's taste because he preferred Chaucer's poetry, which has scarcely +a touch of this melancholy, to Shelley's, which is drenched in it, as it +would be absurd to quarrel with it because he obtained strictly imaginative +pleasure more readily from + + Shall I, wasting in despair + +than from + + Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! + +His preference merely shows him to belong to a minority: it does not show +him to be insensible to poetry. For Wither's mood, by the evidence of its +expression, although it may not be so universal in its appeal nor so +adventurous in design, is here active to the degree of poetry no less +surely than is Keats's. And yet, while it would be an error of judgment +to rate Wither below Keats (by virtue of these illustrations) in pure +poetic energy, it would, I think, be quite sound so to rate Suckling by +the witness of his lyric. For while Wither's mood, in its chosen activity, +is wholly surrendered to the poetic energy, Suckling's is not. It is +contaminated by one of those external activities which I have spoken of as +being hostile to poetry. Although he perceives his subject with the right +urgency, he is unwilling to be quite loyal to his perception. He makes +some concession to the witty insincerity of the society in which he lives, +and his poetry is soiled by the contact. It is not destroyed, not even +changed in its nature, but its gold is left for ever twisted in a baser +metal with which it does not suit. What we get is not a new compound with +the element that corresponds to poetic energy transmuted, but an +ill-sorted mixture, while Keats gives us the unblemished gold. We are +right in proclaiming his the finer achievement. + +Keats and Wither will serve as examples with which to finish our argument. +In spite of all that has been said Keats takes higher rank as poet than +Wither? Yes, certainly, but not because the poetic energy in him was a +finer thing than the poetic energy that was in Wither. It was more +constant, which is a fact of no little importance; its temper appealed to +a much more general sympathy, a circumstance which cannot be left out of +the reckoning; it touched a far wider range of significant material. +These things give Keats his just superiority of rank, but they do not +deprive Wither, at his best moments, of the essential quality which is +with Keats, as with all poets, the one by which he makes his proudest +claim good. Nor need it be feared that in allowing Wither, with his rare +moments of withdrawn and rather pale perfection, this the highest of all +distinctions, we are making accession to the title of poet too easy. It +remains the most difficult of all human attainments. The difference between +the essential quality in those eight fragile lines and that in such verse +as, say: + + Oft. In the stilly night, + Ere slumber's chain has bound me, + Fond memory brings the light + Of other days around me, + +may be so elusive as to deceive many people that it does not exist, but it +is the difference between the rarest of all energies and a common enough +sensibility. + + + +LYRIC FORMS + + +While, therefore, the term "lyric poetry" would in itself seem to be +tautological, and so to speak of lyric forms is, strictly, to speak of +all poetic forms, there are nevertheless certain more or less defined +characteristics of form that we usually connect in our mind with what we +call "a lyric" (or, even less exactly, "lyric poetry") which may be said to +be a poem where the pure poetic energy is not notably associated with other +energies--with a partial exception to which reference will be made. In +examining these characteristics nothing will be attempted in the way of a +history or an inclusive consideration of particular forms which are known +as lyric, but only, as far as may be, an analysis of their governing +principles. + +To say that a lyric (using the word henceforward in its particular sense) +is generally short is but to say that poetic tension can only be sustained +for a short time. Poe's saying that a long poem is a sequence of short +ones is perfectly just. What happens, I think, is this. The poetic mood, +selecting a subject, records its perception of that subject, the result is +a lyric, and the mood passes. On its recurrence another subject is selected +and the process repeated. But if another energy than the purely poetic, the +energy of co-ordination of which I have spoken, comes into operation, there +will be a desire in the poet to link the records of his recurrent poetic +perceptions together, and so to construct many poems into a connected +whole. Any long work in which poetry is persistent, be it epic or drama or +narrative, is really a succession of separate poetic experiences governed +into a related whole by an energy distinct from that which evoked them. The +decision that the material used at one occurrence of the poetic mood shall +be related to the material used at the next is not in itself an operation +of the purely poetic energy, but of another. + +The present purpose is, however, to consider the general character of forms +used by poets when they choose to leave each successive record of poetic +experience in isolation. I have said that any translation of emotion into +poetry--it might be said, into any intelligible expression--necessarily +implies a certain co-operation of intellectual control. If we take even a +detached phrase so directly and obviously emotional in source as: + + I die, I faint, I fail! + +it is clear that the setting out those words is not merely an emotional +act. But intellectual control of this kind is not identical with that +intellectual relating of one part to another of which we have been +speaking, which we may call co-ordination. Of all energies, however, the +co-ordinating energy is the one with which the poetic energy is most +instinctively in sympathy, and it is in this connection that I made a +partial exception when I said that a lyric was a poem where the pure poetic +energy was not notably associated with other energies. When a poet writes +a poem of corresponding lines and stanzas or in a form of which the +structural outline is decided by a definable law--as in the sonnet--he is +in effect obeying the impulse of the co-ordinating energy, and the use of +rhyme is another sign of obedience to the same impulse. It so happens +that this energy, next to the poetic energy, is the most impressive +and satisfying of all mental activities, and while poetry may exist +independently of it, the fact remains that it very rarely does so. A very +curious fallacy about this matter has sometimes obtained support. The +adherents of what is called free verse, not content, as they should +thankfully be, if they can achieve poetry in their chosen medium, are +sometimes tempted to claim that it is the peculiar virtue of their +manner--which, let me say it again, may be entirely admirable--that it +enables the structure of verse to keep in constant correspondence with +change of emotion. The notion is, of course, a very convenient one when you +wish to escape the very exacting conditions of formal control, and have not +the patience or capacity to understand their difficulties, and that it is +professed by many who do so wish is doubtless. But there are other serious +and gifted people, loyally trying to serve a great art, who hold this view, +and on their account consideration is due to it. But it is none the less a +fallacy, and doubly so. In the first place, the change of line-lengths and +rhythms in a short poem written in "free verse" is nearly always arbitrary, +and does not succeed in doing what is claimed for it in this direction, +while it often does succeed in distressing the ear and so obscuring the +sense, though that is by the way. It is not as though given rhythms and +line-lengths had any peculiar emotional significance attached to them. +A dirge may be in racing anapaests, laughter in the most sedate iambic +measure; a solemn invocation may move in rapid three-foot lines, while +grave heroic verse may contain the gayest of humours. In a long work, +indeed, variety of structure may be used to give variety of sensation to +the ear with delightful and sometimes even necessary effect, though--in +English, and I am always speaking of English--it cannot even then be used +with any certainty to express change of emotion. But in a lyric the ear +does not demand this kind of relief. With many of us, at least, it accepts +and even demands an unbroken external symmetry. The symmetry may be +externally simple, as in, say, the stanzas of _Heraclitus_: + + They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead; + They brought me bitter news to hear, and bitter tears to shed. + I wept as I remembered how often you and I + Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky. + + And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest, + A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest, + Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales awake, + For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take, + +or intricate, as in: + + Blest pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven's joy, + Sphere-born harmonious Sisters, Voice and Verse, + Wed your divine sounds, and mixt power employ + Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce; + And to our high-raised phantasy present + That undisturbed song of pure content, + Aye sung before the sapphire-colour'd throne + To Him that sits thereon + With saintly shout and solemn jubilee; + Where the bright Seraphim in burning row + Their loud-uplifted angel-trumpets blow; + And the Cherubic host in thousand quires + Touch their immortal harps of golden wires, + With those just Spirits that wear victorious palms, + Hymns devout and holy psalms + Singing everlastingly: + +in either case there is a formal and easily perceptible relation between +one part of the structure and another, and this relation is a positive help +to us in understanding the plain sense of the words, while its presence +does not involve any loss of emotional significance which its absence would +supply. The truth is--and here is the second and chief objection to the +claim that we are discussing--that the poetic mood, which is what is +expressed by the rhythm and form of verse and may very well be called the +emotion of poetry, is not at all the same thing as what are commonly called +the emotions--as happiness, despair, love, hate and the rest. Its colour +will vary between one poet and another, but in one poet it will be +relatively fixed in quality, while these other emotions are but material +upon which, in common with many other things, it may work. And being a +relatively fixed condition, it is, for its part, in no need of changing +metrical devices for its expression, and to maintain that the "emotions," +subjects of its activity, should have in their alternation a corresponding +alternation of metrical device is no more reasonable than to maintain that +other subjects of its activity should be so treated; it is to forget, for +example, that when Shakespeare wrote: + + Fear no more the heat o' the sun, + Nor the furious winter's rages: + Thou thy worldly task hast done, + Home art gone and ta'en thy wages: + Golden lads and girls all must, + As chimney-sweepers, come to dust, + +it was his subject-matter that changed from line to line and not the poetic +emotion governing it, and to say that he ought to have made the metrical +and rhythmic form of the first line in itself suggest heat: of the second, +rough weather: of the third, work: of the fourth, wages: and of the fifth +and sixth the death of golden lads and girls and of chimney-sweepers +respectively, all things manifestly very different from each other, and +things which, if it were the function of verbal rhythms and metres to do +this sort of thing at all, could not with any propriety have the closely +related equivalents that they have here. No; to ask for this kind of effect +is really to ask for nothing more valuable than the devotional crosses and +altars into which a perverted wit led some of the seventeenth-century poets +to contrive their verses in unhappy moments, or Southey's _Lodore_, in +which there is a fond pretence that verbal rhythms are water.[3] It is just +as difficult to explain why verbal rhythms will not perform this function +as it is to explain why the moon is not a green cheese. + +[3: Most poets will occasionally use onomatopoeia with success, +but this is a different matter, and even so it is quite an inessential +poetic device. One might sometimes suppose from what we are told, that +Virgil's chief claim to poetry was the fact that he once made a line of +verse resemble the movement of a horse's hoofs.] + +But while it is true that the function of the rhythm of poetry is to +express the governing poetic emotion, and that, since the emotion in +itself is fixed rather than changing, it will best do this not by mere +irregularity, but by flexible movement that is contained in an external +symmetry, it does not follow at all that the subject-matter which the +poetic emotion is controlling, be it the "emotions" or anything else, +cannot hope for expression that catches its peculiar properties. To do this +in poetry is the supreme distinction not of rhythms, but of words. The +preponderance of the five-foot blank-verse line in the work of, say, +Shakespeare and Milton, is so great that we can safely say that their rank +as poets would not be lower than it is if they had written nothing else. +Clearly their constancy to this metre was not the result of any technical +deficiency. Even if Milton had not written the choruses of _Samson +Agonistes_ and Shakespeare his songs, nobody would be so absurd as +to suggest that they adopted this five-foot line and spent their mighty +artistry in sending supple and flowing variety through its external +uniformity, because they could not manage any other. They used it because +they found that its rhythm perfectly expressed their poetic emotion, and +because the formal relation of one line to another satisfied the instinct +for co-ordination, and for the full expression of the significance of their +subject-matter they relied not upon their rhythms, but upon their choice +of words. The belief that when a poem is written there is one and only one +metrical scheme that could possibly be used for that particular occasion is +an amiable delusion that should be laid aside with such notions as that the +poet makes his breakfast on dew and manna. Once the poem is written we +may feel indeed, if it be a good one, that any change in the form is +impossible, but when the poet was about to write it we may be sure that +he quite deliberately weighed one form against another before making his +choice. It may even be true that he will sometimes find the shape of his +poem running to his tongue as it were unbidden, but this certainty of +selection is really in itself the result of long and, perhaps, subconscious +deliberation. The point is that the chosen form must in any case express +the poetic emotion, but that its particular election is a personal whim, +wholly satisfactory in its result, rather than a divine necessity. _The +Ode to the West Wind_ and the _Stanzas written in Dejection_ are +both superb poems, but who shall say that Shelley might not have written +the former in the short-measured nine-line stanzas and the latter in his +_terza-rima_, and yet have embodied his poetic emotion as completely +as he has done? It need hardly be added that it does not follow that, +because a simple metrical outline may easily and justly be chosen, it can +easily be used. So plain a measure as the six-line octo-syllabic stanza may +be the merest unintelligent jog-trot, or it may be: + + I wander'd lonely as a cloud + That floats on high o'er vales and hills, + When all at once I saw a crowd, + A host, of golden daffodils; + Beside the lake, beneath the trees, + Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. + +We may now consider this question of the subject-matter and its expression +in words. When the poet makes his perfect selection of a word, he is +endowing the word with life. He has something in his mind, subjected to +his poetic vision, and his problem is to find words that will compel us to +realise the significance of that something. To solve this problem is his +last and most exacting difficulty, demanding a continual wariness and the +closest discipline. When Homer nodded, another man's word came to his lips, +and when that happens the poet may as well be silent. No poet has been +wholly blameless of this relaxation or escaped its penalties, but it is by +his vigilance in this matter that we measure his virility. + +I suppose everyone knows the feeling that sometimes calls us to a life +where we fend and cater for ourselves in the fields and rivers, such as +William Morris knew when he shot fieldfares with his bow and arrow and +cooked them for his supper. Shakespeare knew it too, in the mind of +Caliban, and his business was to realise this subject-matter for us in such +a way that it could not possibly escape us in vague generalisation. Its +appeal to our perceptions must be irresistible. He can do it only by the +perfect choice of words, thus: + + I'll show thee the best springs; I'll pluck thee berries; + I'll fish for thee and get thee wood enough. + + * * * * * + + I prithee, let me bring thee where crabs grow; + And I with my long nails will dig thee pig-nuts; + Show thee a jay's nest, and instruct thee how + To snare the nimble marmoset; I'll bring thee + To clustering filberts and sometimes I'll get thee + Young scamels from the rock. + +Every word sings with life, and the whole passage shows perfectly the +function of words in poetry. The peculiar delight which we get from such a +passage as this comes, I think, apart from its fundamental poetic quality, +from the fact that the subject-matter is of such general interest as +constantly to tempt incomplete perception to inadequate expression. +Consequently when we get an expression which is complete our pleasure has +an added surprise. "Show thee a _jay's_ nest"; it is strangely simple, +but it is revelation. Or let us take a case where the subject-matter is one +of the emotions of which we have spoken; the emotion that marks the pity of +parting at death: + + I am dying, Egypt, dying: + +the use of that one word, Egypt, should answer for ever the people who +think that the subject-matter of poetry is to be expressed by rhythm. + +Thus we have rhythm expressing the poetic emotion, or intensity of +perception, and words expressing the thing that is intensely perceived; so, +as the creed of the mystics shows us beauty born of the exact fusion of +thought with feeling, of perfect correspondence of the strictly chosen +words to the rhythmic movement is born the complete form of poetry. +And when this perfect correspondence occurs unaccompanied by any other +energy--save, perhaps, the co-ordinating energy of which I have spoken--we +have pure poetry and what is commonly in our minds when we think of lyric. +If it be objected that some of my illustrations, that speech of Caliban's +for example, are taken from "dramatic poetry" and not from "lyric poetry," +my answer is that it is impossible to discover any essential difference +between those lines and any authentic poem that is known as "a lyric." The +kind of difference that there is can be found also between any two +lyrics; it is accidental, resulting from difference of personality and +subject-matter, and the essential poetic intensity, which is the thing that +concerns us, is of the same nature in both cases. Any general term that can +fitly be applied to, say, the _Ode to The West Wind_ can be applied +with equal fitness to Caliban's island lore. Both are poetry, springing +from the same imaginative activity, living through the same perfect +selection and ordering of words, and, in our response, quickening the same +ecstasy. Although we are accustomed to look rather for the rhymed and +stanzaic movement of the former in a lyric than for the stricter economy +and uniformity of Caliban's blank verse, yet both have the essential +qualities of lyric--of pure poetry. + + + +SONG + + +It may be protested that after all the peculiar property of lyric, +differentiating it from other kinds of poetry, is that it is song. If we +dismiss the association of the art of poetry with the art of music, as +we may well do, I think the protest is left without any significance. In +English, at any rate, there is hardly any verse--a few Elizabethan poems +only--written expressly to be sung and not to be spoken, that has any +importance as poetry, and even the exceptions have their poetic value quite +independently of their musical setting. For the rest, whenever a true poem +is given a musical setting, the strictly poetic quality is destroyed. The +musician--if he be a good one--finds his own perception prompted by the +poet's perception, and he translates the expression of that perception from +the terms of poetry into the terms of music. The result may be, and often +is, of rare beauty and of an artistic significance as great, perhaps, as +that of the poem itself, and the poet is mistaken in refusing, as he often +does,[4] to be the cause of the liberation of this new and admirable +activity in others. But, in the hands of the musician, once a poem has +served this purpose, it has, as poetry, no further existence. It is +well that the musician should use fine poetry and not bad verse as his +inspiration, for obvious reasons, but when the poetry has so quickened him +it is of no further importance in his art save as a means of exercising a +beautiful instrument, the human voice. It is unnecessary to discuss the +relative functions of two great arts, wholly different in their methods, +different in their scope. But it is futile to attempt to blend the two. + +[4: His refusal is commonly due to lamentable experience. If a +Shelley is willing to lend his suggestions to the musician, he has some +right to demand that the musician shall be a Wolf. The condition of his +allowing his poem to be used and destroyed in the process is, rightly, that +something of equal nobility shall be wrought of its dust.] + +As far as my indifferent understanding of the musician's art will allow me +I delight in and reverence it, and the singing human voice seems to me to +be, perhaps, the most exquisite instrument that the musician can command. +But in the finished art of the song the use of words has no connection with +the use of words in poetry. If the song be good, I do not care whether the +words are German, which I cannot understand, or English, which I can. On +the whole I think I prefer not to understand them, since I am then not +distracted by thoughts of another art. + +If then from the argument about the lyric that it should "sing," we dismiss +this particular meaning of its adaptability to music, what have we left? It +cannot be that it peculiarly should be rhythmic, since we have seen that to +be this is of the essential nature of all poetry--that rhythm is, indeed, +necessary to the expression of the poetic emotion itself. It cannot be that +it peculiarly should be of passionate intensity, since again, this we have +seen to be the condition of all poetry. In short, it can mean nothing that +cannot with equal justice be said of poetry wherever it may be found. To +the ear that is worthy of poetry the majestic verse of the great passages +in _Paradise Lost_, the fierce passion of Antony and Macbeth, the +movement of the poetry in _Sigurd the Volsung_, "sing" as surely as +the lyrics of the Elizabethans or of _Poems and Ballads_. Poetry must +give of its essential qualities at all times, and we cannot justly demand +that at any time it should give us more than these. + + + +THE POPULARITY OF LYRIC + + +Poetry being the sign of that which all men desire, even though the desire +be unconscious, intensity of life or completeness of experience, the +universality of its appeal is a matter of course. We often hear people say, +sincerely enough, that they feel no response to poetry. This nearly always +means that their natural feeling for poetry has been vitiated in some +way, generally by contact, often forced upon them, with work that only +masquerades as poetry, or by such misgovernment of their lives as dulls all +their finer instincts. Unless it be wholly numbed in some such way, the +delight of poetry is ready to quicken in almost every man; and with a +little use it will quicken only to what is worthy. And lyric being pure +poetry, and most commonly found in isolation in the short poems which are +called lyrics, these will make the widest appeal of all the forms in which +poetry is found. For while sympathy with the poetic energy is almost +universal, sympathy with most other great energies is relatively rare. +The reason, for example, why twenty people will enjoy Wordsworth's +_Reaper_ for one who will enjoy _Paradise Lost_, is not because +_Paradise Lost_ is longer, but because it demands for its full +appreciation not only, in common with _The Reaper_, a sympathy with +the poetic energy, which it would obtain readily enough, but also a +sympathy with that other energy of intellectual control which has been +discussed. This energy being, though profoundly significant, yet far less +so than the poetic energy, the response to it is far less general, and many +readers of _Paradise Lost_ will find in it not only poetry, which they +desire but faintly, while in _The Reaper_ they will find poetry as +nearly isolated from all other energies as it can be. + + + +CONCLUSION + + +To summarise our argument, we find that poetry is the result of the +intensest emotional activity attainable by man focusing itself upon some +manifestation of life, and experiencing that manifestation completely; that +the emotion of poetry expresses itself in rhythm and that the significance +of the subject-matter is realised by the intellectual choice of the perfect +word. We recognise in the finished art, which is the result of these +conditions, the best words in the best order--poetry; and to put this +essential poetry into different classes is impossible. But since it is most +commonly found by itself in short poems which we call lyric, we may say +that the characteristic of the lyric is that it is the product of the pure +poetic energy unassociated with other energies, and that lyric and poetry +are synonymous terms. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lyric, by John Drinkwater + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LYRIC *** + +***** This file should be named 9850.txt or 9850.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/9/8/5/9850/ + +Produced by Thierry Alberto and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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