as overflow),
there is no worse sign for a poet altogether, except pure barrenness.
Every word that could be taken away from a poem, unreferable to either
of the above reasons for it, is a damage; and many such are death; for
there is nothing that posterity seems so determined to resent as this
want of respect for its time and trouble. The world is too rich in
books to endure it. Even true poets have died of this Writer's Evil.
Trifling ones have survived, with scarcely any pretensions but the
terseness of their trifles. What hope can remain for wordy mediocrity?
Let the discerning reader take up any poem, pen in hand, for the
purpose of discovering how many words he can strike out of it that
give him no requisite ideas, no relevant ones that he cares for, and
no reasons for the rhyme beyond its necessity, and he will see what
blot and havoc he will make in many an admired production of its
day,--what marks of its inevitable fate. Bulky authors in particular,
however safe they may think themselves, would do well to consider what
parts of their cargo they might dispense with in their proposed voyage
down the gulfs of time; for many a gallant vessel, thought
indestructible in its age, has perished;--many a load of words,
expected to be in eternal demand, gone to join the wrecks of
self-love, or rotted in the warehouses of change and vicissitude. I
have said the more on this point, because in an age when the true
inspiration has undoubtedly been reawakened by Coleridge and his
fellows, and we have so many new poets coming forward, it may be as
well to give a general warning against that tendency to an
accumulation and ostentation of _thoughts_, which is meant to be a
refutation in full of the pretensions of all poetry less cogitabund,
whatever may be the requirements of its class. Young writers should
bear in mind, that even some of the very best materials for poetry are
not poetry built; and that the smallest marble shrine, of exquisite
workmanship, outvalues all that architect ever chipped away. Whatever
can be so dispensed with is rubbish.

_Variety_ in versification consists in whatsoever can be done for the
prevention of monotony, by diversity of stops and cadences,
distribution of emphasis, and retardation and acceleration of time;
for the whole real secret of versification is a musical secret, and is
not attainable to any vital effect, save by the ear of genius. All the
mere knowledge of feet and numbers, of accen