Such writers deal with the known,
with the best commonplace, not the common merely; and under the glance
of genius the common grows strange and profound.
Some poets, not weak in poetic imagination, yet use it chiefly for
secondary purposes, that is, for beautifying the dress, the externals
of poetry. Minds with some breadth but with little depth are not
thoroughly original. Their sense of the beautiful busies itself
necessarily with that for which they have the readiest gifts; and
their readiest gifts being words more than ideas, versification more
than thought, form more than substance, they turn out verse,
chiefly narrative, which captivates through its easy flow, its smooth
sensuousness of diction, its gloss. Take a poet so celebrated, in some
respects so admirable, as Tennyson. Tennyson's verse is apt to be too
richly dressed, too perfumed. The clothing is costlier than the
thoughts can pay for. Hence at every re-reading of him he parts with
some of his strength, so that after three or four repetitions he has
little left for you. From a similar cause this is the case too with
Byron, through whose pen to common sentiment and opinion a glow is
imparted by the animal heat of the man, heightened by poetic tints
from a keen sense of the beautiful.
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