re told of one poet-hero. The good Catholic verse of Father Ryan
carries a warning of the merely fortuitous connection between poets'
talent and their respectability, averring,

They are like angels, but some angels fell.
[Footnote: _Poets_.]

Even Whittier is not sure that poetical excellence is worthy to be
mentioned in the same breath as virtue, and he writes,

Dimmed and dwarfed, in times like these
The poet seems beside the man;
His life is now his noblest strain.
[Footnote: _To Bryant on His Birthday_.]

When the poet of more firmly grounded conviction attempts to show reason
for his confidence in the poet's virtue, he may advance such an argument
for the association of righteousness and genius as has been offered by
Carlyle in his essay, _The Hero as Poet_. This is the theory that, far
from being an example of nervous degeneration, as his enemies assert,
the poet is a superman, possessing will and moral insight in as
preeminent a degree as he possesses sensibility. This view, that poetry
is merely a by-product of a great nature, gains plausibility from
certain famous artists of history, whose versatility appears to have
been unlimited. Longfellow has seized upon this conception of the poet
in his drama, _Michael Angelo_, as has G. L. Raymond in his drama,
_Dante_. In the latter poem the argument for the poet's moral supremacy
is baldly set forth.

Artistic sensibility, Dante says, far from excusing moral laxity, binds
one to stricter standards of right living. So when Cavalcanti argues in
favor of free love,

Your humming birds may sip the sweet they need
From every flower, and why not humming poets?

Raymond makes Dante reply,

The poets are not lesser men, but greater,
And so should find unworthy of themselves
A word, a deed, that makes them seem less worthy.

Owing to the growth of specialization in modern life, this argument,
despite Carlyle, has not attained much popularity. Even in idealized
fictions of the poet, it is not often maintained that he is equally
proficient in every line of activity. Only one actual poet within our
period, William Morris, can be taken as representative of such a type,
and he does not afford a strong argument for the poet's distinctive
virtue, inasmuch as tradition does not represent him as numbering
remarkable saintliness among his numerous gifts.

There is a decided inconsistency, moreover, in claiming unusual strength
of will as one of the poet