this is not for him to assume, nor a claim which they are swift to grant. The lines, "O many are the poets that are sown By Nature! men endowed with highest gifts, Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse," imply that the recognized poet is one who gives voice, in expressive language, to the common thought and feeling which lie deeper than ordinary speech. He is the interpreter: moreover, he is the maker, an artist of the beautiful, the inventor of harmonious numbers which shall be a lure and a repose. A poet, however emotional or rich in thought, must not fail to express his conception and make his work attractive. Over-possession is worth less than a more commonplace faculty; he that has the former is a sorrow to himself and a vexation to his hearers, while one whose speech is equal to his needs, and who knows his limitations, adds something to the treasury of song, and is able to shine in his place, "and be content.' Certain effects are suggested by nature; the poet discovers new combinations within the ground which these afford. Ruskin has shown that in the course of years, though long at fault, the masses come to appreciate any admirable work. By inversion, if, after a long time has passed, the world still is repelled by a singer, and finds neither rest nor music in him, the fault is not with the world; there is something deficient in his genius, he is so much the less a poet. The distinction between poetry and prose must be sharply observed. Poetry is an art,— a specific fact, which, owing to the vagueness fostered by minor wits, we do not sufficiently insist upon. We hear it said that an eloquent prose passage is poetry, that a sunset is a poem, and so on. This is well enough for rhetorical effect yet wholly untrue, and no poet should permit himself to talk in that way. Poetry is poetry, because it differs from prose; it is artificial, and gives us pleasure because we know it to be so. It is beautiful thought expressed in rhythmical form, not half expressed or uttered in the form of prose. It is a metrical structure; a spirit not disembodied, but in the flesh, so as to affect the senses of living men. Such is the poetry of Earth; what that of a more spiritual region may be I know not. Milton and Keats never were in doubt as to the meaning of the art. It is true that fine prose is a higher form of expression than wretched verse; but when a distinguished young English poet thus writes to me, "My own impression is that Verse is an inferior, or infant, form of speech, which will ultimately perish altogether. The Seer, the Vates, the teacher of a new truth, is single, while what you call artists are legion," - when I read these words, I remember that the few great seers have furnished models for the simplest and greatest form of art; I feel that this poet is growing heretical with respect, not to the law of custom, but to a law which is above us all; I fear to discover a want of beauty, a vague transcendentalism, rather than a clear inspiration, in his verse, to see him become prosaic and substitute rhetoric for passion, realism for naturalness, affectation for lofty thought, and, "having been praised for bluntness," to "affect a saucy roughness." In short, he is on the edge of danger. Yet his remark denotes a just impatience of forms so hackneyed that, once beautiful, they now are stale and corrupt. It may be necessary, with the Pre-Raphaelites, to escape their thraldom and begin anew. But the poet is a creator, not an iconoclast, and never will tamely endeavor to say in prose what can only be expressed in song. And I have faith that my friend's wings will unfold, in spite of himself, and lift him bravely as ever on their accustomed flights. Has the lapse of years made Browning any more attractive to the masses, or even to the judicious few? He is said to have "succeeded by a series of failures," and so he has, as far as notoriety means success, and despite the recent increase of his faults. But what is the fact which strikes the admiring and sympathetic student of his poetry and career? Distrusting my own judgment, I asked a clear and impartial thinker,—- "How does Browning's work impress you?" His reply, after a moment's consider 66 ation was: Now that I try to formulate the sensation which it always has given me, his work seems that of a grand intellect painfully striving for adequate use and expression, and never quite attaining either." This was, and is, precisely my own feeling. The question arises, What is at fault ? Browning's genius, his chosen mode of expression, his period, or one and all of these? After the flush of youth is over, a poet must have a wise method, if he would move ahead. He must improve upon instinct by experience and common-sense. There is something amiss in one who has to grope for his theme and cannot adjust himself to his period; especially in one who cannot agreeably handle such themes as he arrives at. More than this, however, is the difficulty in Browning's case. Expression is the flower of thought; a fine imagination is wont to be rhythmical and creative, and many passages, scattered throughout Browning's works, show that his is no exception. It is a certain caprice or perverseness of method, that, by long practice, has injured his gift of expression; while an abnor |