This gives sure note of the presence of the matrix out of
which poetry molds itself, that is, sensibility warm and deep,
penetrating sympathy. Where evolution and upward movement are not, it
is a sign that the spring lacks depth and is too much fed by surface
streams from without.
Through a poem should run a thread of emotional thought, strong enough
to bind the parts together so vividly as to hold attention close to
the substance. Many a so-called poem is but a string of elaborate
stanzas, mostly of four lines each, too slightly connected to
cooperate as members of an organic whole. There is not heat enough in
the originating impulse to fuse the parts into unity. There is
too much manufacture and not enough growth. Coleridge says, "The
difference between manufactured poems and works of genius is not less
than between an egg and an egg-shell; yet at a distance they both look
alike."
Men without depth of sensibility or breadth of nature, but with enough
sense of beauty to modulate their thoughts, using with skill the
floating capital of sentiment and the current diction and molds of
verse, for a generation are esteemed poets of more genius than they
have, their pages being elaborate verse flavored with poetry, rather
than poems.
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