He will be a Poet if he have: a Poet in word; or failing that,
perhaps still better, a Poet in act. Whether he write at all, and if so,
whether in prose or in verse, will depend on accidents: who knows on
what extremely trivial accidents,--perhaps on his having had a
singing-master, on his being taught to sing in his boyhood! But the
faculty which enables him to discern the inner heart of things, and the
harmony that dwells there (for whatsoever exists has a harmony in the
heart of it, or it would not hold together and exist), is not the result
of habits or accidents, but the gift of Nature herself; the primary
outfit for a Heroic Man in what sort soever. To the Poet, as to every
other, we say first of all _See_. If you cannot do that, it is of no use
to keep stringing rhymes together, jingling sensibilities against each
other, and _name_ yourself a Poet; there is no hope for you. If you can,
there is, in prose or verse, in action or speculation, all manner of
hope. The crabbed old Schoolmaster used to ask, when they brought him a
new pupil, "But are ye sure he's _not a dunce_?" Why, really one might
ask the same thing, in regard to every man proposed for whatsoever
function; and consider it as the one inquiry needful: Are ye sure he's
not a dunce? There is, in this world, no other entirely fatal person.
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