attempt to make himself intelligible, or he may quench the spark of his
thought in the effort to trim his verse into a shape that pleases his
public.

Austin Dobson takes malicious pleasure, often, in championing the less
aristocratic side of the controversy. His _Advice to a Poet_ follows,
throughout, the tenor of the first stanza:

My counsel to the budding bard
Is, "Don't be long," and "Don't be hard."
Your "gentle public," my good friend,
Won't read what they can't comprehend.

This precipitates us at once into the marts of the money changers, and
one shrinks back in distaste. If this is what is meant by keeping one's
audience in mind during composition, the true poet will have none of it.
Poe's account of his deliberate composition of the _Raven_ is
enough to estrange him from the poetic brotherhood. Yet we are face to
face with an issue that we, as the "gentle reader," cannot ignore. Shall
the poet, then, inshrine his visions as William Blake did, for his own
delight, and leave us unenlightened by his apocalypse?

There is a middle ground, and most poets have taken it. For in the
intervals of his inspiration the poet himself becomes, as has been
reiterated, a mere man, and except for the memories of happier moments
that abide with him, he is as dull as his reader. So when he labors to
make his inspiration articulate he is not coldly manipulating his
materials, like a pedagogue endeavoring to drive home a lesson, but for
his own future delight he is making the spirit of beauty incarnate. And
he will spare no pains to this end. Keats cries,

O for ten years, that I may overwhelm
Myself in poesy; so I may do the deed
My soul has to herself decreed.
[Footnote: _Sleep and Poetry_. See also the letter to his brother
George, April, 1817.]

Bryant warns the poet,

Deem not the framing of a deathless lay
The pastime of a drowsy summer day;
But gather all thy powers
And wreak them on the verse that thou dost weave.
[Footnote: _The Poet_.]

It is true that not all poets agree that these years of labor are of
avail. Even Bryant, just quoted, warns the poet,

Touch the crude line with fear
But in the moments of impassioned thought.
[Footnote: _The Poet_.]

Indeed the singer's awe of the mysterious revelation given him may be so
deep that he dares not tamper with his first impetuous transcription of
it. But as a sculptor toils over a single vein till it is perfect, the
poet may linger