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Excerpt from Nineveh: And Other Poems
The question arises: Is there any positive test of literary achievement? Matthew Arnold's definitions, set forth in his introduction to Ward's English Poets, are suggestive, if un satisfactory. In every poet's work we discover single poems, which, by common consent, out shine their companions without necessarily ex celling in earnestness of purpose or verbal beauty, rhythmic splendour or originality of con ception. They throb with a mysterious vitality which, while it may elude definition, is numis takably felt. Arnold's touch-stones of poetry fall under this category; likewise Leigh Hunt's Jenny Kissed Me, Rossetti's Blessed Damo zel, Markham's Man with the Hoe, Poe's Raven, and Oscar Wilde's Ballad of Read ing Gaol. I have purposely chosen dissimilar examples. The pieces have, however, one qual ity in common, which, for lack of a better name, I should like to term finality of expression. That is, they solve without a remainder the equation between thought and utterance. They express.
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