This is the central allegory in
_Enydmion_, that the poet must learn to help humanity before the mystery
of poetship shall be unlocked to him. Browning comments to this effect
upon Bordello's unwillingness to meet the world:
But all is changed the moment you descry
Mankind as half yourself.
Matthew Arnold is the sternest of modern poets, perhaps, in pointing out
the poet's responsibility to humanity:
The poet, to whose mighty heart
Heaven doth a quicker pulse impart,
Subdues that energy to scan
Not his own course, but that of man.
Though he move mountains, though his day
Be passed on the proud heights of sway,
Though he hath loosed a thousand chains,
Though he hath borne immortal pains,
Action and suffering though he know,
He hath not lived, if he lives so.
[Footnote: _Resignation_.]
It is obvious that in the poet's opinion there is only one means by
which he can help humanity, and that is by helping men to express their
essential natures; in other words, by setting them free. Liberty is
peculiarly the watch-word of the poets.
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