The end of poetry is not pleasure,--this were
to speak too grossly,--but refined enjoyment through emotion.
To him who has the finer sensibility to become aware of its presence,
the poetical is everywhere. The beautiful is a kiss which man gives to
Nature, who returns it; to get the kiss from her he must first give
it. Wordsworth says, "Poetry is the breath and fine spirit of all
knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is in the
countenance of all science." It might be called the aromatic
essence of all life.
A poem is the incarnation of this aroma, the condensation of it into
form. A drop of dew symbolizes a poem; for a true poem should be oval,
without angles, transparent, compact, complete in itself, graceful
from inward quality and fullness. It may be of a few lines, or of
hundreds or thousands; but there must be no superfluous line or word.
A poem drops out of the brain a fragrant distillation. A poem must be
a spiritual whole; that is, not only with the parts organized into
proportioned unity, but with the whole and the parts springing out of
the idea, the sentiment, form obedient to substance, body to soul, the
sensuous life to the inward.
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