But this poem is a pure freak in poetry. Perhaps it might be asserted of
James Thompson, without too much casuistry, that he was, poetically
speaking, not a materialist but a pessimist, and that the strength of
his poetic gift lay in the thirst of his imagination for an ideal world
in which his reason would not permit him to believe. One cannot say of
him, as of Coleridge, that "his unbelief never touched his heart." It
would be nearer the truth to say that his unbelief broke his heart.
Thomson himself would be the first to admit that his vision of the City
of Dreadful Night is inferior, as poetry, to the visions of William
Blake in the same city, of whom Thomson writes with a certain wistful
envy,
He came to the desert of London town,
Mirk miles broad;
He wandered up and he wandered down,
Ever alone with God.
[Footnote: _William Blake._]
Goethe speaks of the poet's impressions of the outer world, the inner
world and the other world. To the poet these impressions cannot be
distinct, but must be fused in every aesthetic experience.
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