Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/347

 A STRANGE BOOK 33I be called poetry by that figure of speech which considers the effect as a synonyme of the cause. But poetry, in a more re- stricted sense, expresses those arrangements of language, and especially metrical language, which are created by that imperial faculty, whose throne is curtained within the invisible nature of man.* "A poem is the very image of life expressed in its eternal truth. . . . " In the infancy of the world, neither poets themselves or their auditors are fully aware of the excellence of poetry ; for it acts in a divine and unapprehended manner, beyond and above con- sciousness ; and it is reserved for future generations, to ccmtem- plate and measure the mighty cause and effect in all the splendour and strength of their union. . . . " Poetry, and the principle of self, of which money is the visible incarnation, are the God and Mammon of the world. . . . " Poetry is, indeed, something divine. . . . What were virtue, love, patriotism, friendship ; what were the scenery of this beau- tiful universe which we inhaint ; what were our consolations on this side of the grave ; and what were our aspirations beyond it, if poetry did not ascend to bring light and fire from those eternal regions where the owl-winged faculty of calculation dare not ever soar ? Poetry is not like reasoning, a power to be exerted according to the determination of the will. A man cannot say, I will compose poetry ! The greatest poet even cannot say it, for the mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some in- visible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness ; this power arises from within, like the colour of a flower which fades and changes as it is developed, and the con- scious portions of our natures are unprophetic, either of its approach or its departure. Could this influence be dural)le in its original purity and force, it is impossible to predict the great- ness of the results ; but when composition begins, inspiration is already on the decline, and the most glorious poetry that has ever been communicated to the world is probably a feeble shadow of the original conceptions of the poet. I appeal to the greatest poet of the present day, whether it is not an error to assert that the finest passages of poetry are produced by labour your Self, or so far within your Self as to amount to the same thing. "
 * Wilkinson's "Writing from an Influx, which is really out of