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Francis Thompson,
indeed, does feel himself humbled by his spiritual solitude, and
characterizes himself,
I who can scarcely speak my fellows' speech,
Love their love or mine own love to them teach,
A bastard barred from their inheritance,
* * * * *
In antre of this lowly body set,
Girt with a thirsty solitude of soul.
[Footnote: _Sister Songs_.]
But the typical poet yearns not downward, but upward, and above him he
finds nothing. Therefore reflection upon his loneliness continually
draws his attention to the fact that his isolation is an inevitable
consequence of his genius,--that he
Spares but the cloudy border of his base
To the foiled searching of mortality.
[Footnote: Matthew Arnold, Sonnet, _Shakespeare_.]
The poet usually looks for alleviation of his loneliness after death,
when he is gathered to the company of his peers, but to the supreme poet
he feels that even this satisfaction is denied. The highest genius must
exist absolutely in and for itself, the poet-egoist is led to conclude,
for it will "remain at heart unread eternally.


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