Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 51; Lectures.djvu/93

Rh Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,

And fragrance in thy footing treads;

Thou dost preserve the Stars from wrong;

And the most ancient Heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong.

Out of the narrative interest, a primary instinct with men, and out of the interest, only gradually developed, in individual character for its own sake, is evolved a special literary form, called drama. Here the poet embodies his feelings and ideas in the persons of others. He no longer speaks for himself; he endows the figures of his creation or observation with an independent substantive life of their own. The narrative interest is still strong, for the dramatist shows his personages in action, but he allows them to work out their own destiny in accordance with the inner necessity of their natures. In the drama, then, the poet's own "criticism of life" is implied rather than directly expressed. The drama, as a literary form, is a domain by itself. In so far as it is poetical, it does not differ essentially from other kinds of poetry, and the same principles hold true throughout all manifestations of the poetic spirit.

Distinctions of motive and form, though numerous and varied, are not to be emphasized for their own sake. These categories may be recognized in the large, but in concrete, single instances they tend to overlap and to intermingle. The narrative poem has another interest than the lyric, but it may be touched with the lyric passion; the drama is different from either and combines both. For the lover of poetry, however, it is not important to devise labels and apply them correctly. Classification suggests the arrangement of a museum. But poetry is a spirit, a living energy. We cannot imprison it in a definition. It calls for welcome and response.

In essence and in effect poetry is an interpretation of experience. A poem is an expression, in beautiful and significant form, of the poet's passion to understand and to possess his world. But, though a poem embodies what some one man has thought and felt, we must not mistake the poet's representative character nor fail to grasp the universalizing power of his work. The individual poet is but an instrument: he speaks for all men. So, in our turn, as we enter by imaginative sympathy into his mind and feeling, we re-create his