raightforward odes and lyrics.

But it is no use complaining. There is a sort of fate which drives
people into this arid path. I sometimes feel as though both
Imagination and Humour fled away from the earth when a modern
poet takes pen to compose Poetic Drama!

The thing is a refuge for those to whom the gods have given a
"talent for literature," and have stopped with that gift. The Poetic
Drama flourishes in Anglo-Saxon Democracies. It lends itself to the
babbling of extreme youth and to the pompous moralising of
extreme middle-age.

The odious thing is an essentially modern creation; created, as it is,
out of thin vapour, and moulded by melancholy rules of thumb.
Drama was Religion to the Greeks, and in the old Elizabethan days
great playwrights wrote great poetry.

I suppose if, by some fairy-miracle, _sheep_--the most modern of
animals--were suddenly endowed with the privileges of culture, they
would browse upon nothing else than Poetic Drama, from All Fools'
Day to Candlemas.

But even Manfred cannot be blamed for this withering sterility, this
dead-sea of ineptitude. There must be some form of literature found,
loose and lax enough to express the Moral Idealism of the
second-rate mind; and Poetic Drama lends itself beautifully to this.

Putting aside a few descriptive passages in "Childe Harold" and
some score of superb lyrics sprinkled through the whole of the
volume, what really is there in Byron at this hour--beyond the
irresistible _idea_ of his slashing and crimson-blooded figure--to
arrest us and hold us, who can read over and over again Christopher
Marlowe and John Keats? Very little--singularly little--almost
nothing.

Nothing--except "Don Juan"! This indeed is something of a poem.
This indeed has the old authentic fire about it and the sweet devilry
of reckless youth.

How does one account for the power and authority over certain
minds exercised by this surprising production? I do not think it is
exactly the wit in it. The wit is often entirely superficial--a mere
tricky playing with light resemblances and wordy jingles. I do not
feel as though it were the humour in it; for Byron is not really a
humorist at all. I think it is something deeper than the mere
juxtaposition of burlesque-show jests with Sunday-evening
sentimentality. I think it is the downright lashing out, left and right,
up and down, of a powerful reckless spirit able "to lash out" for the
mere pleasure of doing so. I think it is