The wretched are the faithful; 'tis their fate
To have all feeling save the one decay,
And every passion into one dilate,
As rapid rivers into ocean pour.
But ours is bottomless and hath no shore.
The manner of achieving this necessary remoteness is a nice problem. Of
course the poet may choose it, with open eyes, as the Marlowe of Miss
Peabody's imagination does, or as the minstrel in Hewlitt's _Cormac,
Son of Ogmond_. The long engagements of Rossetti and Tennyson are
often quoted as exemplifying this idiosyncrasy of poets. But there is
something decidedly awkward in such a situation, inasmuch as it is not
till love becomes so intense as to eclipse the poet's pride and joy in
poetry that it becomes effective as a muse. [Footnote: See Mrs.
Browning, Sonnet VII.
And this! this lute and song, loved yesterday,
Are only dear, the singing angels know
Because thy name moves right in what they say.]
The minor poet, to be sure, is often discovered solicitously feeling his
pulse to gauge the effect of love on his rhymes, but one does not feel
that his verse gains by it.
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