In proportion as work is labored, it is felt to
be dead.
There is no lack of verse suggesting that extemporaneous composition is
most poetical, [Footnote: See Scott's accounts of his minstrels'
composition. See also, Bayard Taylor, _Ad Amicos_, and _Proem
Dedicatory_; Edward Dowden, _The Singer's Plea_; Richard Gilder,
_How to the Singer Comes the Song_; Joaquin Miller, _Because the
Skies are Blue_; Emerson, _The Poet_; Longfellow, _Envoi_; Robert
Bridges, _A Song of My Heart_.] but is there nothing to be said on the
other side? Let us reread Browning's judgment on the matter:
Touch him ne'er so lightly, into song he broke.
Soil so quick receptive,--not one feather-seed,
Not one flower-dust fell but straight its fall awoke
Vitalizing virtue: song would song succeed
Sudden as spontaneous--prove a poet soul!
Indeed?
Rock's the song soil rather, surface hard and bare:
Sun and dew their mildness, storm and frost their rage
Vainly both expend,--few flowers awaken there:
Quiet in its cleft broods--what the after-age
Knows and names a pine, a nation's heritage.
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