196 BIRDS AND POETS 



prose-writer never can, nor one whose form is essen- 

 tially prose, like Whitman's. 



I, too, love to see the forms worthily used, as 

 they always are by the master; and I have no ex- 

 pectation that they are going out of fashion right 

 away. A great deal of poetry that serves, and helps 

 sweeten one's cup, would be impossible without 

 them, — would be nothing when separated from them. 

 It is for the ear and the sense of tune, and of care- 

 fully carved and modeled forms, and is not meant 

 to arouse the soul with the taste of power, and to 

 start off on journeys for itself. But the great in- 

 spired utterances, like the Bible, — what would they 

 gain by being cast in the moulds of metrical verse ? 



In all that concerns art, viewed from any high 

 standpoint, — proportion, continence, self-control, 

 unfaltering adherence to natural standards, subordi- 

 nation of parts, perfect adjustment of the means to 

 the end, obedience to inward law, no trifling, no 

 levity, no straining after effect, impartially attend- 

 ing to the back and loins as well as to the head, and 

 even holding toward his subject an attitude of per- 

 fect acceptance and equality, — principles of art to 

 which alone the great spirits are amenable, — in 

 all these respects, I say, this poet is as true as an 

 orb in astronomy. 



To his literary expression pitched on scales of such 

 unprecedented breadth and loftiness, the contrast of 

 his personal life comes in with a foil of curious 

 homeliness and simplicity. Perhaps never before 

 has the absolute and average commonness of hu- 



