LVI THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



it supremacy in the arts and we are as far as ever from a perfect 

 definition of poetry. Perhaps the best, the only definition of poetry 

 is a true poem, for poetry and the poetic is a quality or state of mind 

 and cannot be described, it is apprehended by sensation, not com- 

 prehended by reason. This renders ineffectual all attempts to answer 

 the question, "What is poetry?", and makes futile the approved 

 definitions. 



These efforts to define what is undefinable inevitably tend to 

 become creative attempts, approximate to poetic utterance, and 

 endeavour to capture the fugitive spirit of poetry by luring it with a 

 semblance of itself. But the question is answered perfectly by even 

 the fragment of a true poem. We know instinctively and say, "This 

 is poetry", and the need for definition ceases. 



The finest criticism of poetry plays about this cencral quality 

 like lightning about a lovely statue in a midnight garden. The 

 beauty is flashed upon the eye and withdrawn. It is remembered in 

 darkness and is verified by the merest flutter or flash of illumination, 

 but the secret of the beauty is shrouded in mystery. I refer to such 

 sayings as this of Coleridge: " It is the blending of passion with order 

 that constitutes perfection" in poetry; that of Keats, "The excellence 

 of every art is its intensity"; that of Rossetti, "Moderation is the 

 highest law of poetry". There are numerous like apothegms written 

 by poets and critics about the art of poetry that accomplish perfectly 

 the necessary separation between the art and the spirit of the art, 

 between the means and the effect. They are flashed upon the mystery 

 and isolate it so that it may be apprehended by its aloofness and 

 separation from things and appearances. We can apply Coleridge's 

 words to any chosen passage of Keats, for example, the familiar 

 "magic casements opening on the foam of perilous seas in fairy lands 

 forlorn". We acknowledge that the perfection of the passage lies in 

 the romantic passion blended with the order that is the sense of 

 balance and completion, but the poetic quality escapes, it is defined, 

 by the effect of the passage and by that alone. 



We quote the words that Shakespeare puts into Anthony's mouth — 



" I am dying, Egypt, dying only of many thousand kisses the 

 poor last I lay upon thy lips." 



We recognize that the excellence of this passage comes from its 

 intensity. And even such an outcry, poignant to the verge of agony, 

 is not inconsistent with the saying of Rossetti; for moderation is a 

 question of scale. The high law of moderation is followed in such 

 an utterance of Anthony's as competently as when Hamlet says 

 simply "The rest is silence", because it is true in the scale of emotion. 



