n in
verse at all; that prose is as good a medium, provided poetry be
conveyed through it; and that to think otherwise is to confound letter
with spirit, or form with essence. But the opinion is a prosaical
mistake. Fitness and unfitness for _song_, or metrical excitement,
just make all the difference between a poetical and prosaical subject;
and the reason why verse is necessary to the form of poetry, is, that
the perfection of poetical spirit demands it;--that the circle of its
enthusiasm, beauty and power, is incomplete without it. I do not mean
to say that a poet can never show himself a poet in prose; but that,
being one, his desire and necessity will be to write in verse; and
that, if he were unable to do so, he would not, and could not, deserve
his title. Verse to the true poet is no clog. It is idly called a
trammel and a difficulty. It is a help. It springs from the same
enthusiasm as the rest of his impulses, and is necessary to their
satisfaction and effect. Verse is no more a clog than the condition of
rushing upward is a clog to fire, or than the roundness and order of
the globe we live on is a clog to the freedom and variety that abound
within its sphere. Verse is no dominator over the poet, except
inasmuch as the bond is reciprocal, and the poet dominates over the
verse. They are lovers, playfully challenging each other's rule, and
delighted equally to rule and to obey. Verse is the final proof to the
poet that his mastery over his art is complete. It is the shutting up
of his powers in '_measureful_ content'; the answer of form to his
spirit; of strength and ease to his guidance. It is the willing
action, the proud and fiery happiness, of the winged steed on whose
back he has vaulted,

To witch the world with wondrous horsemanship.

Verse, in short, is that finishing, and rounding, and 'tuneful
planetting' of the poet's creations, which is produced of necessity by
the smooth tendencies of their energy or inward working, and the
harmonious dance into which they are attracted round the orb of the
beautiful. Poetry, in its complete sympathy with beauty, must, of
necessity, leave no sense of the beautiful, and no power over its
forms, unmanifested; and verse flows as inevitably from this condition
of its integrity, as other laws of proportion do from any other kind
of embodiment of beauty (say that of the human figure), however free
and various the movements may be that play within their limits. What