He, more than any other true poet, approaches Verse to Prose—never, I believe, or hardly ever, quite blends them.
BULLER.
Often—often—often, my dear sir.
NORTH.
Seldom—seldom—seldom if ever, my dear sir. He tells his Life. His Poems are, of necessity, an Autobiography. The matter of them, then, is his personal reality; but Prose is, all over and properly, the language of Personal Realities. Even with him, however, so peculiarly conditioned, and, as well as I am able to understand his Proposition, against his own Theory of writing, Verse maintains, as by the laws of our insuppressible nature it always will maintain, its sacred Right and indefeasible Prerogative.
To conclude our conversation—
BULLER.
Or Monologue.
NORTH.
Epos is Human History in its magnitude in Verse. In Prose, National History offers itself in parallelism. The coincidence is broad and unquestioned; but on closer inspection, differences great and innumerable spring up and unfold themselves, until at last you might almost persuade yourself that the first striking resemblance deceived you, and that the two species lack analogy, so many other kinds does the Species in Verse embosom, and so escaping are the lines of agreement in the instant in which you attempt fixing them.