ariance with their secret convictions, when he describes himself:

I, who cower mean and small
In the frequent interval
When wisdom not with me resides.
[Footnote: _The Poet_.]

However divine the singer considers himself in comparison with ordinary
humanity, he must admit that at times

Discrowned and timid, thoughtless, worn,
The child of genius sits forlorn,
* * * * *
A cripple of God, half-true, half-formed.
[Footnote: Emerson, _The Poet_. See also George Meredith, _Pegasus_.]

Like Dante, we seem disposed to faint at every step in our revelation.
Now a doubt crosses our minds whether the child of genius in his
crippled moments is better fitted than the rest of us to point out the
pathway to sacred enthusiasm. It appears that little verse describing
the poet's afflatus is written when the gods are actually with him. In
this field, the sower sows by night. Verse on inspiration is almost
always retrospective or theoretical in character. It seems as if the
intermittence of his inspiration filled the poet with a wistful
curiosity as to his nature in moments of soaring. By continual
introspection he is seeking the charm, so to speak, that will render his
afflatus permanent. The rigidity in much of such verse surely betrays,
not the white heat of genius, but a self-conscious attitude of readiness
for the falling of the divine spark.

One wonders whether such preparation has been of much value in hastening
the fire from heaven. Often the reader is impatient to inform the
loud-voiced suppliant that Baal has gone a-hunting. Yet it is alleged
that the most humble bribe has at times sufficed to capture the elusive
divinity. Schiller's rotten apples are classic, and Emerson lists a
number of tested expedients, from a pound of tea to a night in a strange
hotel. [Footnote: See the essay on Inspiration. Hazlitt says Coleridge
liked to compose walking over uneven ground or breaking through
straggling branches.] This, however, is Emerson in a singularly
flat-footed moment. The real poet scoffs at such suggestions. Instead,
he feels that it is not for him to know the times and seasons of his
powers. Indeed, it seems to him, sometimes, that pure contrariety marks
the god's refusal to come when entreated. Thus we are told of the god of
song,

Vainly, O burning poets!
Ye wait for his inspiration.
* * * * *
Hasten back, he will say, hasten back