In discussing poetry it is once more necessary to begin with something which will serve us as a definition. No man can imprison the essence of an art in words; and it is not to be understood that a formal definition can be framed which shall express all that poetry is and means. Its more obvious characteristics, however, may be phrased, and even an incomplete formula is often useful. There have been almost as many definitions of poetry made already as there have been writers on literature, some of them intelligible and some of them open to the charge of incomprehensibility. Schopenhauer, for instance, defined poetry as the art of exciting by words the power of the imagination; a phrase so broad that it is easily made to cover all genuine literature. It will perhaps be sufficient for our purpose here if we say that poetry is the embodiment in metrical, imaginative language of passionate emotion.

By metrical language is meant that which is systematically rhythmical. Much prose is rhythmical. Indeed it is difficult to conceive of fine or delicate prose which has not rhythm to some degree, and oratorical prose is usually distinguished by this. The Bible abounds in excellent examples; as, for instance, this passage from Job:—

Hell is naked before Him, and destruction hath no covering; He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing. He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds; and the cloud is not rent under them. He holdeth back the face of His throne, and spreadeth His cloud upon it. He hath compassed the waters with bounds until the day and night come to an end. The pillars of heaven tremble, and are astonished at His reproof. He divideth the sea with His power, and by His understanding He smiteth through the proud.—Job, xxvi. 6-12.

Here, as in all fine prose, there is a rhythm which is marked, and at times almost regular; but it is not ordered by a system, as it must be in the simplest verse of poetry. Take, by way of contrast, a stanza from the superb chorus to Artemis in "Atalanta in Calydon:"—

Here the rhythm is systematized according to regular laws, and so becomes metrical. The effect upon the ear in prose is largely due to rhythm, but metrical effects are entirely within the province of poetry.

This difference between rhythmical and metrical language would seem to be sufficiently obvious, but the difficulty which many students have in appreciating it may make it worth while to give another illustration. The following passage from Edmund Burke, that great master of sonorous English, is strongly and finely rhythmical:—

Because we are so made as to be affected at such spectacles with melancholy sentiments upon the unstable condition of mortal prosperity, and the tremendous uncertainty of human greatness; because in those natural feelings we learn great lessons; because in events like these our passions instruct our reason; because when kings are hurled from their thrones by the Supreme Director of this great drama, and become objects of insult to the base, and of pity to the good, we behold such disasters in the moral, as we should behold a miracle in the physical order of things.—Reflections on the Revolution in France.

So markedly rhythmical is this, indeed, that it would take but little to change it into metre:—

Because we are so made as to be moved by spectacles like these with melancholy sentiments of the unstable case of mortal things, and the uncertainty of human greatness here; because in those our natural feelings we may learn great lessons too; because in such events our passions teach our reason well; because when kings are hurled down from their thrones, etc.

There is no longer any dignity in this. It has become a sort of sing-song, neither prose nor yet poetry. The sentiments are not unlike those of a familiar passage in Shakespeare:—

In the extract from Burke a sense of weakness and even of flatness is produced by the rearrangement of the accents so that they are made regular; while in the verse of Shakespeare the sensitive ear is very likely troubled by the single misplaced accent in the first line. In any mood save the poetic metre seems an artificiality and an affectation, but in that mood it is as natural and as necessary as air to the lungs.

Besides being metrical the language of poetry must be imaginative. By imaginative language is meant that which not only conveys imaginative conceptions, but which is itself full of force and suggestion; language which not only expresses ideas and emotions, but which by its own power evokes them. Imaginative language is marked by the most vivid perception on the part of the writer of the connotive effect of words; it conveys even more by implication than by direct denotation. It may of course be used in poetry or prose. In the passage from Job just quoted, the use of such phrases as "empty place," "hangeth the earth upon nothing," convey more by what they suggest to the mind than by their literal assertion. The writer has evidently used them with a vital and vivid understanding of their suggestiveness. He realizes to the full their office to convey impressions so subtle that they cannot be given by direct and literal diction.

Poetry is made up of words and phrases which glow with this richness of intention. When Shakespeare speaks of skin "smooth as monumental alabaster," how much is added to the idea by the epithet "monumental," the suggestion of the polished and protected stone, enshrined on a tomb; how much is due to association and implication in such phrases as the "reverberate hills," "parting is such sweet sorrow," "the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand," "and sleep in dull, cold marble,"—phrases all of which have a literal significance plain enough, yet of which this literal meaning is of small account beside that which they evoke. Poetic diction naturally and inevitably melts into figures, as when we read of "the shade of melancholy boughs," "the spendthrift sun," "the bubble reputation," "the inaudible and noiseless foot of time;" but the point here is that even in its literal words there is constantly the sense and the employment of implied meanings. It is by no means necessarily figures to which language owes the quality of being imaginative. Broadly speaking, a style may be said to be imaginative in proportion as the writer has realized and intended its suggestions.

The language of prose is often imaginative to a high degree, but seldom if ever to that extent or with that deliberate purpose which in verse is nothing less than essential. Genuine poetry differs from prose in the entire texture of its web. From the same threads the loom may weave plain stuff or richest brocade; and thus of much the same words are made prose and poetry. The difference lies chiefly in the fashion of working.

The essentials of the manner of poetry being language metrical and imaginative, the essential of the matter is that it be the expression of passionate emotion. By passionate emotion is meant any feeling, powerful or delicate, which is capable of filling the whole soul; of taking possession for the time being of the entire man. It may be fierce hate, enthralling love, ambition, lust, rage, jealousy, joy, sorrow, any over-mastering mood, or it may be one of those intangible inclinations, those moods of mist, ethereal as hazes in October, those caprices of pleasure or sadness which Tennyson had the art so marvelously to reproduce. Passionate emotion is by no means necessarily intense, but it is engrossing. For the time being, at least, it seems to absorb the whole inner consciousness.

It is the completeness with which such a mood takes possession of the mind, so that for the moment it is to all intents and purposes the man himself, that gives it so great an importance in human life and makes it the fitting and the sole essential theme of the highest art. Behind all serious human effort lies the instinctive sense of the fitness of things. The artist must always convince that his end is worthy of the means which he employs to reach it; and it follows naturally that the writer who uses imaginative diction and the elaborateness of metre must justify this by what he embodies in them. Metrical forms are as much out of place in treating of the material concerns of life as would be court robes or religious rites in the reaping of a field or the selling of a cargo of wool. The poet is justified in his use of all the resources of form and of poetic diction by the fact that the message which he is endeavoring to convey is high and noble; that the meaning which he attempts to impart is so profoundly subtle as to be inexpressible unless the words which he employs are assisted by the language of rhythm and metre.

That the reader unconsciously recognizes the fact that the essential difference in the office of prose and poetry makes inevitable a difference also of method, is shown by his dissatisfaction when the writer of prose invades the province of poetry. The arrangement of the words of prose into systematic rhythm produces at once an effect of weakness and of insincerity. Dickens in some of his attempts to reach deep pathos has made his prose metrical with results most disastrous. The mood of poetry is so elevated that metrical conventions seem appropriate and natural; whereas in the mood of even the most emotional prose they appear fantastical and affected. The difference is not unlike that between the speaking and the singing voice. A man who sang in conversation, or even in a highly excited oration, would simply make himself ridiculous. In song this manner of using the voice is not only natural but inevitable and delightful. What would be uncalled for in the most exalted moods of the prose writer is natural and fitting in the case of the poet, because the poet is endeavoring to embody, in language the most deep, the most high, the most delicate experiences of which humanity is capable. The form is with him a part of his normal language. To say in prose: "My love is like a red rose newly sprung in June, or like a melody beautifully played," means not much. Yet the words themselves are not widely varied from those in which Burns conveys the same ideas with so great an added beauty, and so much more emotional force:—

The metrical cadences woo the ear like those of a melody sweetly played, and to that which the words may say or suggest they add an effect yet more potent and delightful.

A moment's consideration of these facts enables one to estimate rightly the stricture made by Plato:—

You have often seen what a poor appearance the tales of poets make when stripped of the colors which music puts upon them, and recited in prose. They are like faces which were never really beautiful, but only blooming, and now the bloom of youth has passed away from them.

It would be more just and more exact to say that they are like the framework of a palace from which have been stripped the slabs of precious marble which covered it. It is neither more nor less reasonable to object to poetry that its theme told in prose is slight or dull than it would be to scorn St. Peter's because its rafters and ridgepole might not be attractive if they stood out bare against the sky. The form is in poetry as much an integral part as walls and roof and dome, statues and jewel-like marbles, are part of the temple.

Leaving out of consideration those peculiarities such as rhyme and special diction, which although often of much effect are not essential since poetry may be great without them, it is sufficiently exact for a general examination to say that the effects of poetry are produced by the threefold union of ideas, suggestion, and melody. In the use of ideas poetry is on much the same footing as prose, except in so far as it deals with exalted moods which have no connection with thoughts which are mean or commonplace. In the use of suggestion poetry but carries farther the means employed in imaginative prose. Melody may be said practically to be its own prerogative. The smoothest flow of rhythmical prose falls far below the melodious cadences of metrical language; and in this manner of appeal to the senses and the soul of man verse has no rival save music itself.

These three qualities may be examined separately. Verse may be found in which there is almost nothing but melody, divorced from suggestion or ideas. There are good examples in Edward Lear's "Nonsense Songs," in which there is an intentional lack of sense; or in the "Alice" books, as, for instance:—

Or one may take something which will convey no idea and no suggestion beyond that which comes with sound and rhythm. Here is a verse once made in sport to pass as a folk-song in an unknown tongue:—

This is a collection of unmeaning syllables, and yet to the ear it is a pleasure. The examples may seem trivial, but they serve to illustrate the fact that there is magic in the mere sound of words, meaning though they have none.

The possibility of pleasing solely by the arrangement and choice of words in verse has been a snare to more than one poet; as a neglect of melody has been the fault of others. In much of the later work of Swinburne it is evident that the poet became intoxicated with the mere beauty of sound, and forgot that poetry demands thought as well as melody; while the reader is reluctantly forced to acknowledge that in some of the verse of Browning there is a failure to recognize that melody is an element as essential as thought.

As verse may be found which has little but melody, so is it possible to find verse in which there is practically nothing save melody and suggestion. In "Ulalume" Poe has given an instance of the effect possible from the combining of these with but the thinnest thread of idea:—

There is here no definite train of thought. It is an attempt to convey a certain mood by combining mysterious and weird suggestion with melody enticing and sweet.

A finer example is the closing passage in "Kubla Khan." The suggestions are more vivid, and the imagination far more powerful.

Here there is a more evident succession of ideas than in "Ulalume;" but in both the effect is almost entirely produced by the music and the suggestion, with very little aid from ideas.

How essential to poetry are melody and suggestion is at once evident when one examines verse which contains ideas without these fundamental qualities. Wordsworth, great as he is at his best, affords ready examples here. The following is by no means the least poetical passage in "The Prelude," but it is sufficiently far from being poetry in any high sense to serve as an illustration:—

Here are ideas, but there is no emotion, and the thing could be said better in prose. It is as fatal to try to express in poetry what is not elevated enough for poetic treatment as it is to endeavor to say in prose those high things which can be embodied by poetry only. Melody alone, or suggestiveness alone, is better than ideas alone if there is to be an attempt to produce the effect of poetry.

Poetry which is complete and adequate adds melody and suggestion to that framework of ideas which is to them as the skeleton to flesh and blood. Any of the great lyrics of the language might be given as examples. The reader has but to open his Shakespeare's "Sonnets" at random, as for instance, at this:—

It is not necessary to carry this analysis farther. The object of undertaking it is to impress upon the reader the fact that in poetry form is an essential element in the language of the art. The student must realize that the poet means his rhythm as truly as and in the same measure that he means the thought; and that to attempt to appreciate poetry without sensitiveness to melody is as hopeless as would be a similar attempt to try to appreciate music. When Wordsworth said that poetry is inevitable, he meant the metre no less than the thought; he wished to convey the fact that the impassioned mood breaks into melody of word as the full heart breaks into song. The true poem is the embodiment of what can be expressed in no other way than by that especial combination of idea, suggestion, and sound. The thought, the hint, and the music are united in one unique and individual whole.