Seigneurs, pour l'amour de Dieu, faites silence, écoutez-moi,
Pour qu'en partant de ce monde vous entriez dans un meilleur;

but after this exclamation he has his way, though the story proper is
still a good way off. Perhaps not all of these hortatory stanzas were
commonly used; any or all of them could certainly be omitted without
damaging the poem. But they were there to be used, according to the
judgment of the jongleur and the temper of his audience, and their
presence in the poem is very suggestive of the special difficulties in
the art of rhapsodic poetry.

But the gravest difficulty, and perhaps the most important, in poetry
meant solely for recitation, is the difficulty of achieving verbal
beauty, or rather of making verbal beauty tell. Vigorous but controlled
imagination, formative power, insight into the significance of
things--these are qualities which a poet must eminently possess; but
these are qualities which may also be eminently possessed by men who
cannot claim the title of poet. The real differentia of the poet is his
command over the secret magic of words. Others may have as delighted a
sense of this magic, but it is only the poet who can master it and do
what he likes with it. And next to the invention of speaking itself, the
most important invention for the poet has been the invention of writing
and reading; for this has added immensely to the scope of his mastery
over words. No poet will ever take the written word as a substitute for
the spoken word; he knows that it is on the spoken word, and the spoken
word only, that his art is founded. But he trusts his reader to do as he
himself does--to receive written words always as the code of spoken
words. To do so has wonderfully enlarged his technical opportunities;
for apprehension is quicker and finer through the eye than through the
ear. After the invention of reading, even poetry designed primarily for