This precipitates us at once into the marts of the money changers, and
one shrinks back in distaste. If this is what is meant by keeping one's
audience in mind during composition, the true poet will have none of it.
Poe's account of his deliberate composition of the _Raven_ is
enough to estrange him from the poetic brotherhood. Yet we are face to
face with an issue that we, as the "gentle reader," cannot ignore. Shall
the poet, then, inshrine his visions as William Blake did, for his own
delight, and leave us unenlightened by his apocalypse?
There is a middle ground, and most poets have taken it. For in the
intervals of his inspiration the poet himself becomes, as has been
reiterated, a mere man, and except for the memories of happier moments
that abide with him, he is as dull as his reader. So when he labors to
make his inspiration articulate he is not coldly manipulating his
materials, like a pedagogue endeavoring to drive home a lesson, but for
his own future delight he is making the spirit of beauty incarnate. And
he will spare no pains to this end.
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