Page:Under the Microscope - Swinburne (1899).djvu/64

 celebrate and sing them. If he does, and does it well and duly, there is an end; solvitur ambulando; the matter is settled once for all by the invaluable and indispensable proof of the pudding. Now whenever the pure poet in Whitman speaks, it is settled by that proof in his favour; whenever the mere theorist in him speaks, it is settled by the same proof against him. What comes forth out of the abundance of his heart rises at once from that high heart to the lips on which its thoughts take fire, and the music which rolls from them rings true as fine gold and perfect; what comes forth by the dictation of doctrinal theory serves only to twist aside his hand and make the written notes run foolishly awry. What he says is well said when he speaks as of himself and because he cannot choose but speak; whether he speak of a small bird's loss or a great man's death, of a nation rising for battle or a child going forth in the morning. What he says is not well said when he speaks not as though he must but as though he ought; as though it behoved one who would be the poet of American democracy to do this thing or to be that thing if the duties of that office were to be properly fulfilled, the tenets of that religion worthily delivered. Never before was high poetry so puddled and adulterated with mere doctrine in its crudest form. Never was there less assimilation of the lower dogmatic with the higher prophetic element. It so happens that