poetical talents, or of industry and skill in metre,
but of the true poet. I took part in a conversation
the other day concerning a recent writer of lyrics,
a man of subtle mind, whose head appeared to be a
music-box of delicate tunes and rhythms, and whose
skill and command of language, we could not sufficiently
praise. But when the question arose whether he was not
only a lyrist but a poet, we were obliged to confess
that he is plainly a contemporary, not an eternal man.
He does not stand out of our low limitations, like a
Chimborazo under the line, running up from the torrid
Base through all the climates of the globe, with belts
of the herbage of every latitude on its high and mottled
sides; but this genius is the landscape-garden of a
modern house, adorned with fountains and statues, with
well-bred men and women standing and sitting in the
walks and terraces. We hear, through all the varied
music, the ground-tone of conventional life. Our poets
are men of talents who sing, and not the children of
music. The argument is secondary, the finish of the
verses is primary.

For it is not metres, but a metre-making argument
that makes a poem,--a thought so passionate and
alive that like the spirit of a plant or an animal
it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature
with a new thing. The thought and the form are equal
in the order of time, but in the order of genesis
the thought is prior to the form. The poet has a new
thought; he has a whole new experience to unfold; he