Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/210

180 sweet surprises, freedom in and out of law, naïveté", aristocratic poise, lightness, pathos, rapture,—all gifts that serve to consecrate the magic touch. However skilled the singer, quality and charm are inborn. Something of them, therefore, always graces the folk-songs of a peasantry, the ballads and songs, let us say, of Ireland and Scotland. Theirs is the wilding flavor which Lowell detects:—

When to this the artist-touch is added, then the The pure lyric.—"Das Durchcompo-nirt." wandering, uncapturable movement of the lyic—more beautiful for its breaks and studied accidentals and most effective discords—is ravishing indeed: at last you have the poet's poetry that is supernal. Its pervading quintessence is like the sheen of flame upon a glaze in earth or metal. Form, color, sound, unite and in some mysterious way become lambent with delicate or impassioned meaning. Here beauty is most intense. Charm is the expression of its expression, the measureless under-vibration, the thrill within the thrill. We catch from its suggestion the very impulse of the lyrist; we are given the human tone, the light of the eye, the play of feature,—all, in fine, which shows the poet in the poem and makes it his and not another's.