it absorb into me as I absorb food, air, to appear again in my
strength, gait, face?
Have real employments contributed to it?
Original makers, not mere amanuenses?"

Speaking of criticism, it occurs to me how important it is that a
poet, or any other writer, should be a critic of himself. Wordsworth,
who was a really great poet, was great only at rare intervals. His
habitual mood was dull and prosy. His sin was that he kept on writing
during those moods, grinding out sonnets by the hundred--one hundred
and thirty-two ecclesiastical sonnets, and over half as many on
liberty, all very dull and wooden. His mill kept on grinding whether
it had any grist of the gods to grind or not. He told Emerson he was
never in haste to publish, but he seems to have been in haste to
write, and wrote on all occasions, producing much dull and trivial
work. We speak of a man's work as being heavy. Let us apply the test
literally to Wordsworth and weigh his verse. The complete edition of
his poems, edited by Henry Reed and published in Philadelphia in 1851,
weighs fifty-five ounces; the selection which Matthew Arnold made from
his complete works, and which is supposed to contain all that is worth
preserving, weighs ten ounces. The difference represents the dead
wood. That Wordsworth was a poor judge of his own work is seen in the
remark he made to Emerson that he did not regard his "Tintern Abbey"
as highly as some of the sonnets and parts of "The Excursion." I
believe the Abbey poem is the one by which he will longest be
remembered. "The Excursion" is a long, dull sermon. Its didacticism
lies so heavily upon it that it has nearly crushed its poetry--like a
stone on a flower.

All poetry is true, but all truth is not poetry. When Burns treats a
natural-history theme, as in his verses on the mouse and the daisy,
and even on the louse, how much more there is in them than mere
natural history! With what a broad and tender philosophy he clothes
them! how he identifies himself with the mouse and regards himself as
its fellow mortal! So have Emerson's "Titmouse" and "Humble-Bee" a
better excuse for being than their natural history. So have McCarthy's
"For a Bunny" and "The Snake," and "To a Worm."

THE SNAKE

Poor unpardonable length,
All belly to the mouth,
Writhe then and wriggle,
If there's joy in it!

_My_ heel, at least, shall spare you.

A little sun on a stone,
A mouse or two,