Poetry is ever accompanied with pleasure: all spirits on which it
falls open themselves to receive the wisdom which is mingled with
its delight. In the infancy of the world, neither poets themselves
nor their auditors are fully aware of the excellence of poetry:
for it acts in a divine and unapprehended manner, beyond and above
consciousness; and it is reserved for future generations to contemplate
and measure the mighty cause and effect in all the strength and
splendour of their union. Even in modern times, no living poet ever
arrived at the fullness of his fame; the jury which sits in judgement
upon a poet, belonging as he does to all time, must be composed
of his peers: it must be impanelled by Time from the selectest of
the wise of many generations. A poet is a nightingale, who sits
in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds;
his auditors are as men entranced by the melody of an unseen
musician, who feel that they are moved and softened, yet know not
whence or why. The poems of Homer and his contemporaries were the
delight of infant Greece; they were the elements of that social
system which is the column upon which all succeeding civilization
has reposed. Homer embodied the ideal perfection of his age in
human character; nor can we doubt that those who read his verses
were awakened to an ambition of becoming like to Achilles, Hector,
and Ulysses the truth and beauty of friendship, patriotism, and
persevering devotion to an object, were unveiled to the depths in
these immortal creations: the sentiments of the auditors must have
been refined and enlarged by a sympathy with such great and lovely
impersonations, until from admiring they imitated, and from imitation
they identified themselves with the objects of their admiration.
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