n.]

Is it possible that the one epic poem which is a man's life work may be
as truly inspired as is the lyric that leaps to his lips with a sudden
gush of emotion? Or is it true, as Shelley seems to aver that such a
poem is never an ideal unity, but a collection of inspired lines and
phrases connected "by the intertexture of conventional phrases?"
[Footnote: _The Defense of Poetry_.]

It may be that the latter view seems truer to us only because we
misunderstand the manner in which inspiration is limited. Possibly poets
bewail the incompleteness of the flash which is revealed to them, not
because they failed to see all the glories of heaven and earth, but
because it was a vision merely, and the key to its expression in words
was not given them. "Passion and expression are beauty itself," says
William Blake, and the passion, so far from making expression inevitable
and spontaneous, may by its intensity be an actual handicap, putting the
poet into the state "of some fierce thing replete with too much rage."

Surely we have no right to condemn the poet because a perfect expression
of his thought is not immediately forthcoming. Like any other artist, he
works with tools, and is handicapped by their inadequacy. According to
Plato, language affords the poet a more flexible implement than any
other artist possesses, [Footnote: See _The Republic_, IX, 588 D.]
yet, at times, it appears to the maker stubborn enough. To quote Francis
Thompson,

Our untempered speech descends--poor heirs!
Grimy and rough-cast still from Babel's brick-layers;
Curse on the brutish jargon we inherit,
Strong but to damn, not memorize a spirit!
[Footnote: _Her Portrait_.]

Walt Whitman voices the same complaint:

Speech is the twin of my vision: it is unequal to measure itself;
It provokes me forever; it says sarcastically,
"Walt, you contain enough, why don't you let it out then?"
[Footnote: _Song of Myself_.]

Accordingly there is nothing more common than verse bewailing the
singer's inarticulateness. [Footnote: See Tennyson, _In Memoriam_,
"For words, like nature, half reveal"; Oliver Wendell Holmes, _To my
Readers_; Mrs. Browning, _The Soul's Expression_; Jean Ingelow, _A Lily
and a Lute_; Coventry Patmore, _Dead Language_; Swinburne, _The Lute and
the Lyre, Plus Intra_; Francis Thompson, _Daphne_; Joaquin Miller,
_Ina_; Richard Gilder, _Art and Life_; Alice Meynell, _Singers to Come_;
Edward Dowden, _Unuttered_; Max Ehrmann