Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/137

Rh them are superadded beings of the earth and air, Caliban and Ariel, creations of the purest imagination. All these reveal their natures by speech and action, with a realism impossible to the tamer method of a narrative poem. Consider the poetic thought and diction: what can excel Prospero's vision of the world's dissolution that shall leave "not a rack behind," or his stately abjuration of the magic art? Listen, here and there, to the songs of his tricksy spirit, his brave chick, Ariel: "Come unto these yellow sands," "Full fathom five thy father lies," "Where the bee sucks, there suck I." Then we have a play within a play, lightening and decorating it, the masque of Iris, Ceres, and Juno. I recapitulate these details to give a perfectly familiar illustration of the scope of the drama. True, this was Shakespeare, but the ideal should be studied in a masterpiece; and such a play as "The Tempest" shows the possibilities of invention and imagination in the most synthetic poetic form over which genius has extended its domain.

For one, I think that Sophocles and Shakespeare have taught us, by example, that greatness Impersonality of the old masters. in the noblest of poetic structures must be impersonal. The magician must not directly appear; though, from reflecting upon a Prospero, a Benedick, or a Hamlet, we may guess at certain of his maker's traits; and in sooth he must know his own heart to read the heart of the world, even while he stands so far aloof that it may be said of him, as of one translated,