To return, however, to the previous definition, this most general and distinctive character of a poem originates in the poetic genius itself; and though it comprises whatever can with any propriety be called a poem, (unless that word be a mere lazy synonyme for a composition in metre,) it yet becomes a just, and not merely discriminative, but full and adequate, definition of poetry in its highest and most peculiar sense, only so far as the distinction still results from the poetic genius, which sustains and modifies the emotions, thoughts, and vivid representations of the poem by the energy without effort of the poet's own mind,--by the spontaneous activity of his imagination and fancy, and by whatever else with these reveals itself in the balancing and reconciling of opposite or discordant qualities, sameness with difference, a sense of novelty and freshness with old or customary objects, a more than usual state of emotion with more than usual order, self-possession and judgment with enthusiasm and vehement feeling,--and which, while it blends and harmonizes the natural and the artificial, still subordinates art to nature, the manner to the matter, and our admiration of the poet to our sympathy with the images, passions, characters, and incidents of the poem:-- Doubtless, this could not be, but that she turns Bodies to _spirit_ by sublimation strange, As fire converts to fire the things it burns-- As we our food into our nature change! From their gross matter she abstracts _their_ forms, And draws a kind of quintessence from things, Which to her proper nature she transforms To bear them light on her celestial wings! _Thus_ doth she, when from _individual states_ She doth abstract the universal kinds, _Which then reclothed in diverse names and fates Steal access thro' our senses to our minds._ [1] [Footnote 1: Sir John Davies on the Immortality of the Soul, sect. iv. The words and lines in italics (_between_) are substituted to apply these verses to the poetic genius. The greater part of this latter paragraph may be found adopted, with some alterations, in the 'Biographia Literaria', vol. ii. c. 14; but I have thought it better in this instance and some others, to run the chance of bringing a few passages twice over to the recollection of the reader, than to weaken the force of the original argument by breaking the connection. Ed.] GREEK DRAMA.