Is that time dead? Lo, with a little rod
I did but touch the honey of romance,
And must I lose a soul's inheritance?
And yet, when the non-lover has finally arrived at the peroration of his
defense, we may remain unshaken in our conviction that from the _Song
of Solomon_ to the _Love Songs of Sara Teasdale_, the history of poetry
constitutes an almost unbroken hymn to the power of love, "the poet, and
the source of poetry in others," [Footnote: _The Symposium_ of Plato, sec.
196.] as Agathon characterized him at the banquet in Love's honour.
Within the field of our especial inquiry, the last century, we may rest
assured that there is no true poet whose work, rightly interpreted, is
out of tune with this general acclaim. Even Browning and Oscar Wilde are
to be saved, although, it may be, only as by fire.
The influence of love upon poetry, which we are assuming with such _a
priori_ certainty, is effected in various ways. The most obvious, of
course, is by affording new subject matter. The confidence of
Shakespeare,
How can my muse want subject to invent
While thou dost breathe, that pourest into my verse
Thine own sweet argument?
is at least as characteristic of the nineteenth as of the sixteenth
century.
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