These things give Keats his just superiority of rank, but they do not
deprive Wither, at his best moments, of the essential quality which is
with Keats, as with all poets, the one by which he makes his proudest
claim good. Nor need it be feared that in allowing Wither, with his rare
moments of withdrawn and rather pale perfection, this the highest of all
distinctions, we are making accession to the title of poet too easy. It
remains the most difficult of all human attainments. The difference between
the essential quality in those eight fragile lines and that in such verse
as, say:
Oft. In the stilly night,
Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
Fond memory brings the light
Of other days around me,
may be so elusive as to deceive many people that it does not exist, but it
is the difference between the rarest of all energies and a common enough
sensibility.
LYRIC FORMS
While, therefore, the term "lyric poetry" would in itself seem to be
tautological, and so to speak of lyric forms is, strictly, to speak of
all poetic forms, there are nevertheless certain more or less defined
characteristics of form that we usually connect in our mind with what we
call "a lyric" (or, even less exactly, "lyric poetry") which may be said to
be a poem where the pure poetic energy is not notably associated with other
energies--with a partial exception to which reference will be made.
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