d garments of an ambitious fancy. The remark being made to
Goethe in his latter days, that scarce one of the younger German poets
had given an example of good prose, he rejoined, "That is very
natural; he who would write prose must have something to say; but he
who has nothing to say can make verses and rhymes; for one word gives
the other, till at last you have before you what in fact is nothing,
yet looks as though it were something." There is much good-looking
verse which does not fulfill any one of Milton's primary conditions
for poetry, being artificial instead of "simple," and having
neither soul enough to be "passionate," nor body enough to be
"sensuous." By passionate Milton means imbued with feeling.

The poetical mood is always a visionary mood; so much so, that even
when the poet is depicting an actual person or scene, he must see it
with the imaginative eye, the inward eye, as well as with the outward.
Unless he does, there is no poetry in the result. A poem is twofold,
presenting an actuality, and at the same time a tender lucent image
thereof, like the reflection of a castle, standing on the edge of a
lake, in the calm deep mirror before it: at one view we see the castle
and its glistening counterpart. In the best poetry there is vivid
picture-making: reality is made more visible by being presented as a
beautiful show. It is the power to present the beautiful show which
constitutes the poet. To conceive a scene or person with such
liveliness and compactness as to be able to transfer the conception to
paper with a distinctness and palpitation that shall make the reader
behold in it a fresh and buoyant type of the actual--this implies a
subtle, creative life in the mind, this is the test of poetic
faculty. To stand this test there must be an inward sea of thought and
sensibility, dipping into which the poet is enabled to hold up his
conception or invention all adrip with sparkling freshness. The poetic
mind, with a firm, and at the same time free, easy hold, holds a
subject at arm's length, where it can be turned round in the light;
the prosaic mind grasps and hugs what it handles so close that there
is no room for play of light or motion.

Contemplating synthetically the highest and choicest and purest, and
at the same time actively endeavoring to embody it, the genuine poet
has in his best work joy as exalted as the mind can here attain to;
and in the reader who can attune himself to the high pitch, he
e