And yet we know that _Paradise Lost_ is a greater work than
this little flight of certain song, greater, too, than the poet's own
elegy. There is an explanation.
Of all the energies of man, that which I will anticipate my argument by
calling the poetic energy, the energy that created Herrick's song and the
distinguishing qualities of that passage from Milton, is the rarest and the
most highly, if not the most generally, honoured; we have only to think of
the handful of men who at any time out of all the millions can bring this
perfect expression to a mood of the highest imaginative intensity, to know
that the honour is justly bestowed. So splendid a thing is success in
this matter that failure, if it is matched with a will for sincerity and
intelligence of purpose, will often bring a man some durable fame. But the
energies of man are manifold, and while we rightly set the poetic energy
above the rest, there are others which are only less rare, and in their
most notable manifestations yielding to it alone in worthiness of homage
which will, indeed, often be more generally paid. Such an energy is the
profound intellectual control of material, as distinct from profound
emotional sensitiveness to material; the capacity for ordering great masses
of detail into a whole of finely balanced and duly related proportions.
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