It is
related to an almost universal condition, but it is a fertile source of
poetry, not one with the poetic energy itself. It would be absurd to impugn
a man's taste because he preferred Chaucer's poetry, which has scarcely
a touch of this melancholy, to Shelley's, which is drenched in it, as it
would be absurd to quarrel with it because he obtained strictly imaginative
pleasure more readily from
Shall I, wasting in despair
than from
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
His preference merely shows him to belong to a minority: it does not show
him to be insensible to poetry. For Wither's mood, by the evidence of its
expression, although it may not be so universal in its appeal nor so
adventurous in design, is here active to the degree of poetry no less
surely than is Keats's. And yet, while it would be an error of judgment
to rate Wither below Keats (by virtue of these illustrations) in pure
poetic energy, it would, I think, be quite sound so to rate Suckling by
the witness of his lyric. For while Wither's mood, in its chosen activity,
is wholly surrendered to the poetic energy, Suckling's is not.
Pages:
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43