In short, it can mean nothing that
cannot with equal justice be said of poetry wherever it may be found. To
the ear that is worthy of poetry the majestic verse of the great passages
in _Paradise Lost_, the fierce passion of Antony and Macbeth, the
movement of the poetry in _Sigurd the Volsung_, "sing" as surely as
the lyrics of the Elizabethans or of _Poems and Ballads_. Poetry must
give of its essential qualities at all times, and we cannot justly demand
that at any time it should give us more than these.
THE POPULARITY OF LYRIC
Poetry being the sign of that which all men desire, even though the desire
be unconscious, intensity of life or completeness of experience, the
universality of its appeal is a matter of course. We often hear people say,
sincerely enough, that they feel no response to poetry. This nearly always
means that their natural feeling for poetry has been vitiated in some
way, generally by contact, often forced upon them, with work that only
masquerades as poetry, or by such misgovernment of their lives as dulls all
their finer instincts. Unless it be wholly numbed in some such way, the
delight of poetry is ready to quicken in almost every man; and with a
little use it will quicken only to what is worthy.
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