It is lamentable to think that such a mind should
be buried in metaphysics, and, like the Nyctanthes, waste its
perfume upon the night alone. In reading that man's poetry, I
tremble like one who stands upon a volcano, conscious from the very
darkness bursting from the crater, of the fire and the light that
are weltering below.
What is Poetry?- Poetry! that Proteus- like idea, with as many
appellations as the nine- titled Corcyra! Give me, I demanded of a
scholar some time ago, give me a definition of poetry.
"Tres-volontiers"; and he proceeded to his library, brought me a Dr.
Johnson, and overwhelmed me with a definition. Shade of the immortal
Shakespeare! I imagine to myself the scowl of your spiritual eye
upon the profanity of the scurrilous Ursa Major. Think of poetry, dear
of all that is airy and fairy-like, and then of all that is hideous
and unwieldy, think of his huge bulk, the Elephant! and then- and then
think of the Tempest- the Midsummer Night's Dream- Prospero- Oberon-
and Titania!
A poem, in my opinion, is opposed to a work of science by having,
for its immediate object, pleasure, not truth; to romance, by having
for its object, an indefinite instead of a definite pleasure, being
a poem only so far as this object is attained; romance presenting
perceptible images with definite poetry with indefinite sensations, to
which end music is an essential, since the comprehension of sweet
sound is our most indefinite conception.
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