He held his manly name
Far dearer than the muse,
[Footnote: J. G. Saxe, _A Poet's Elegy_.]
we are told of one poet-hero. The good Catholic verse of Father Ryan
carries a warning of the merely fortuitous connection between poets'
talent and their respectability, averring,
They are like angels, but some angels fell.
[Footnote: _Poets_.]
Even Whittier is not sure that poetical excellence is worthy to be
mentioned in the same breath as virtue, and he writes,
Dimmed and dwarfed, in times like these
The poet seems beside the man;
His life is now his noblest strain.
[Footnote: _To Bryant on His Birthday_.]
When the poet of more firmly grounded conviction attempts to show reason
for his confidence in the poet's virtue, he may advance such an argument
for the association of righteousness and genius as has been offered by
Carlyle in his essay, _The Hero as Poet_. This is the theory that, far
from being an example of nervous degeneration, as his enemies assert,
the poet is a superman, possessing will and moral insight in as
preeminent a degree as he possesses sensibility.
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