For while the subjects of poetry are few
and recurrent, the moods of man are infinitely various and unstable. It is
the same in all arts. If six masters paint the same landscape and under
the same conditions, there will be one subject but six visions, and
consequently six different interpretations, each one of which may, given
the mastery, satisfy us as being perfect; perfect, that is, not as the
expression of a subject which has no independent artistic existence, but as
the expression of the mood in which the subject is realised. So it is in
poetry. All we ask is that the mood recorded shall impress us as having
been of the kind that exhausts the imaginative capacity; if it fails to do
this the failure will announce itself either in prose or in insignificant
verse.
THE DEGREES OF POETRY
The question that necessarily follows these reflections is--Are there
degrees in poetry? Since a short lyric may completely satisfy the
requirements of poetry as here set down, announcing itself to have been
created in a poetic or supremely intensified mood, can poetry be said at
any time to go beyond this? If we accept these conclusions, can a thing so
slight, yet so exquisite, so obviously authentic in source as:
When I a verse shall make,
Know I have pray'd thee,
For old religion's sake,
Saint Ben, to aid me.
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