Such a poet, interpreting nature and mirroring Divinity, and thus idealizing life that the seeing, aspiring soul may attain nearer its illimitable possibilities, we call an original poet, a genius. He is never a “popular” poet, as that term is used, but he is quite generally unpopular. Popular in the sense of time-enduring he is by that same Divine Law that brings him into existence. His soul will inevitably have some greatness in common with other great souls. These will rescue him and commend him to an increasing posterity; and so on and on, touching more and more souls, and thus seeming to grow ever better and better, though in reality he remains ever unchanged, while the souls he touches are the ones that ever strive to his greater height, and draw up numbers with them.
Thus does he whom an unappreciating, small-souled mob would have crucified, become immortal through the reciprocal divinity that is in himself and in the heart of humanity. Thus does, thus must, this poet-genius create—call into activity—the taste that must make him time-enduring. This is the penalty of genius and greatness—to suffer, and then triumphantly to endure forever in the hearts of men. Who would he were not a genius? Who would he were? In proof of all this, witness Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, not to speak of all the greatest Great.
I love that unswerving poetic genius who, in the face of taunts and revilings and sneers, still is obedient to that sublime divinity within him; who, conscious of his own soul’s illimitable vastness, must inevitably write for that soul’s satisfaction, and thus write, not for the present generation, but for posterity; and who, when he “wraps the drapery of his couch about him,” having obeyed the divine voice within him even to his latest breath, finally triumphs over all sneers and taunts and jeers, triumphs even over death, and, though dead, triumphantly lives in immortal words that still speak to us more and more divinely through the trumpet-soul of the more and more divine ages.
Such a poet, I say, must create the taste that will make him time-enduring. In other words, this true poet, this genius (else he were no genius at all), must see some relation of soul to soul not ordinarily seen, and never at all seen in exactly the same way, and so express that relation in words that humanity can but recognize it from the very fact of its commonness, its universality. Such a poet never follows public opinion, in the narrow sense of the opinion of a transitory present; but through great trials and suffering and much enduring generally, he leads it, or creates it rather, and develops it into that broader, truer public opinion,—humanity’s opinion; the only opinion, I should say, that is equal to that of a great soul.
The great never follow, but ever lead. They never pander to a perverted public taste, but follow their own convictions; and thus following the guiding power within them, they lead others in the same path. Thus drawn onwards and upwards by that link which binds man unto God, and thus leading humanity aright, they instinctively obey the teachings of Him, the Master, who “came not to be ministered unto, but to minister”; for they follow in His footsteps by upward leading and by thus greatly and divinely serving mankind.
In a general way, I may say of poets that there are two classes:—the introspective, or those whose souls, ever standing in the presence of the Divinity within them, hear the calls of other souls and the mighty voice of God; and hearing, obey;—the extrospective, or those whose souls, not less divine, but less conscious, perhaps, of that Divinity, unconsciously perceive the manifold relations in external nature, and through the universal spirit of nature none the less distinctly hear that same Almighty Voice. We shall hardly find a poet in whom one of these characteristics exists to the exclusion of the other; but we shall find that in many cases one characteristic or the other is dominant. For example, Browning is one of our best representatives of the introspective, and Wordsworth of the extrospective; while Shakespeare is the highest type of the perfect union of the two. Both classes obey the same voice, and though ministering through different sources, have the same mission to perform, the uplifting and purifying of the human soul.
Indeed, whatever does not have this mission is not true poetry. It is often said that that literature is best which has stood the test of time. Not so, if by that is meant simply that the literature shall have lived long; for both good and bad live. The true test is that it betters man’s estate, and ennobles his heart. If a poem inspires the heart with nobler feelings and greater love, then it is a good poem. This is the crucial, the only true test.
There is no act of the human mind that is not controlled by the feelings. When this is comprehended and when, at the same time, it is perceived to what an extent poetry ministers to the feelings, the utility of poetry will be better appreciated. Poetry thus ministering to the controlling forces of life, is a guide and corrective of life; a guide in that it is “a representation of life” (as Alfred Austin has it), the experiences of the hearts of men; a corrective in that it is “a criticism of life” (as Matthew Arnold says), an idealization that, by uplifting, corrects the heart that else would droop. Austin thinks his idea opposes Arnold’s. It does not. Each simply looks at one side; each takes a different angle. Both are correct so far as they go. For poetry is the heart’s history. It is also the ever present attempt, in the light of that guiding lamp, to the making of a better history.
This, indeed, makes it philosophy. For what else does philosophy do? The poet is ever a philosopher. Is not poetry philosophy teaching by experience? It does not teach by precept, it is not didactic; that is the province of prose; but it mirrors the human heart and reveals its experiences. Nine hundred ninety-nine people shape their lives by experience where one shapes his by rule and thumb. One rose of experience with its warning thorns has more of humanity and guidance in it than all the tangle-woods of teaching. The hand must follow the heart. If the heart be right the hand can never go wrong.
He who would be an immortal poet must have a great and sympathizing heart; a heart that laughs and weeps, and most of all, a heart that loves. Were I asked the one essential of the poet, that essential which includes all minor requisites, I should answer, Love. “A Poet without Love,” says Carlyle, “were a physical and a metaphysical impossibility.” It is the dominating element of all great poets. What poet is greater, or what one has loved more deeply than Burns?