Now it is unimportant to decide whether education since the time of Aristotle has been responsible for the spread of this view of poetry; or whether it is the great numerical predominance of poets who have professed it from a policy of self-protection, and have written most of their poetry to support it, over poets who have either dissented or refused to commit themselves, that has been responsible. The fact remains that this has been the officially accepted academic view and the view of orthodox criticisms: even a self-proclaimed dissenter like Poe defined the end of poetry as spiritual elevation. Poetry in every Classical period has been formed according to this principle. The mass-impressiveness of Classical poetry is, indeed, largely due to its uniformity. And though we know from historical reconstructions that even between romantics like Byron, Wordsworth, Keats, Coleridge and Shelley there was about as much personal dissimilarity as could possibly be found between contemporary poets, yet the lip-service that each of these paid to this creed of the uses of poetry induced for the most part a corresponding pen-service. The emphasis that the educational system lays on personal and literary similarities in poets makes it still more difficult to appraise them separately. Here are descriptive passages by six more or less contemporary writers, typical classroom passages: the hoar And aery Alps towards the North appeared Through mist, an heaven-sustaining bulwark reared Between the East and West, and half the sky Was roofed with clouds of rich emblazonry Dark purple at the Zenith, which still grew Down the steep West into a wondrous hue Brighter than burning gold, even to the rent Where the swift sun yet paused in his descent Among the many folded hills.... It was no marvel--from my very birth My soul was drunk with love--which did pervade And mingle with whate’er I saw on earth. Of objects all inanimate I made Idols, and out of wild and lonely flowers And rocks, whereby they grew, a paradise. Woodlark may sink from sandy fern--the Sun may hear his lay; Runnels may kiss the grass on shelves and shallows clear, But their low voices are not heard, though come on travels drear; Blood-red the Sun may set behind black mountain peaks; Blue tides may sluice and drench their time in caves and weedy creeks. Mournfully breaks the north wave on thy shore, Silent Iona, and the mocking blast Sweeps sternly o’er thy relics of the past, The stricken cross, the desecrated tomb Of abbots and barbarian kings of yore.... Since risen from ocean, ocean to defy Appeared the Crag of Ailsa, ne’er did morn With gleaming lights more gracefully adorn His sides, or wreathe with mist his forehead high Now, faintly darkening with the sun’s eclipse, Still is he seen, in lone sublimity.