Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/244

214 verse withal as almost his sole mode of expression, should not have been a poet. In the manner of his time, how far above his rivals! Every active literary period has one poet at least. To me he seems like the tree which, pressed hard about by rocks, adorns them and struggles into growth and leafage. A fashion of speech mastered him, but he refined it and made it effective, the wonder being that he did so much with it. All admit that Cowper was a poet and the pioneer of a noble school. But he was as didactic as Pope; his vantage lay in a return to natural diction and flexible rhythm. A free vehicle of expression sets free the imagination. Again, there are forms still in use, and natural, as we say, to the genius of our language, in which Pope's resources were sufficient for the display of lasting thought and emotion. "The Universal Prayer" and "The Dying Christian to his Soul" equal the best of Cowper's lyrics. "The Rape of the Lock," still the masterwork of patrician verse, shows what its author could do with a subject to which his grace, wit, and spirit were exactly suited. The passionate intensity of "Eloisa to Abelard" lifts that epistle far above the wonted liberties of its formal verse. Looking at the man, Pope, that fiery, heroic little figure, that vital, electric spirit pitiably encaged,—defying and conquering his foes, loving, hating, questioning, worshipping,—I see the poet. However, if you care to realize how much more difference there is in the methods than in the