voked a smile in us, as in the
mourners of Adonais, at recognizing one

Who in another's fate now wept his own.

Of course a suppressed personal grudge may not always have been a factor
in lending warmth to these defenses. Mrs. Browning is an ardent advocate
of the misunderstood poet, though she herself enjoyed a full measure of
popularity. But when Landor so warmly champions Southey, and Swinburne
springs to the defense of Victor Hugo, one cannot help remembering that
the public did not show itself wildly appreciative of either of these
defenders. So, too, when Oscar Wilde works himself up over the
persecutions of Dante, Keats and Byron, we are minded of the irreverent
crowds that followed Wilde and his lily down the street. When the poet
is too proud to complain of his own wrongs at the hands of the public,
it is easy for him to strike in defense of another. As the last century
wore on, this vicarious indignation more and more took the place of a
personal outcry. Comparatively little has been said by poets since the
romantic period about their own persecutions.[Footnote: See, however,
Joaquin Miller, _I Shall Remember_, and _Vale_; Francis Ledwidge, _The
Visitation of Peace_.]

Occasionally a poet endeavors to placate the public by assuming a pose
of equality. The tradition of Chaucer, fostered by the _Canterbury
Tales_, is that by carefully hiding his genius, he succeeded in
keeping on excellent terms with his contemporaries. Percy Mackaye, in
the _Canterbury Pilgrims_, shows him obeying St. Paul's injunction
so literally that the parson takes him for a brother of the cloth, the
plowman is surprised that he can read, and so on, through the whole
social gamut of the Pilgrims. But in the nineteenth century this
friendly attitude seldom works out so well. Walt Whitman flaunts his
ability to fraternize with the man of the street. But the American
public has failed "to absorb him as affectionately as he has absorbed
it." [Footnote: _By Blue Ontario's Shore._] Emerson tries to get on
common ground with his audience by asserting that every man is a poet to
some extent,[Footnote: See _The Enchanter_.] and it is consistent
with the poetic theory of Yeats that he makes the same assertion as
Emerson:

There cannot be confusion of sound forgot,
A single soul that lacks a sweet crystalline cry.
[Footnote: _Pandeen._]

But when the mob jeers at a poet, it does not take kindly to his retort,
"Poet yourself." Longfello