In these lines the writings of the Provençal poets are principally alluded to, in which simplicity is generally sacrificed to the rhapsodies of romantic love.
ODE ON THE POETICAL CHARACTER.
| Procul! O! procul este profani! |
This ode is so infinitely abstracted and replete with high enthusiasm, that it will find few readers capable of entering into the spirit of it, or of relishing its beauties. There is a style of sentiment as utterly unintelligible to common capacities, as if the subject were treated in an unknown language; and it is on the same account that abstracted poetry will never have many admirers.
The authors of such poems must be content with the approbation of those heaven-favoured geniuses, who, by a similarity of taste and sentiment, are enabled to penetrate the high mysteries of inspired fancy, and to pursue the loftiest flights of enthusiastic imagination. Nevertheless, the praise of the distinguished few is certainly preferable to the applause of the undiscerning million; for all praise is valuable in proportion to the judgment of those who confer it.
As the subject of this ode is uncommon, so are the style and expression highly metaphorical and abstracted: thus the sun is called “the rich-hair’d 132 youth of morn,” the ideas are termed “the shadowy tribes of mind,” &c. We are struck with the propriety of this mode of expression here, and it affords us new proofs of the analogy that subsists between language and sentiment.
Nothing can be more loftily imagined than the creation of the cestus of Fancy in this ode: the allegorical imagery is rich and sublime: and the observation, that the dangerous passions kept aloof during the operation, is founded on the strictest philosophical truth: for poetical fancy can exist only in minds that are perfectly serene, and in some measure abstracted from the influences of sense.
The scene of Milton’s “inspiring hour” is perfectly in character, and described with all those wild-wood appearances of which the great poet was so enthusiastically fond: