Farther, it is necessary to the existence of poetry that the grounds
of these feelings should be _furnished by the imagination_. Poetical
feeling, that is to say, mere noble emotion, is not poetry. It is
happily inherent in all human nature deserving the name, and is found
often to be purest in the least sophisticated. But the power of
assembling, by _the help of the imagination_, such images as will
excite these feelings, is the power of the poet or literally of the
"Maker."[40]
Now this power of exciting the emotions depends of course on the
richness of the imagination, and on its choice of those images which,
in combination, will be most effective, or, for the particular work to
be done, most fit. And it is altogether impossible for a writer not
endowed with invention to conceive what tools a true poet will make
use of, or in what way he will apply them, or what unexpected results
he will bring out by them; so that it is vain to say that the details
of poetry ought to possess, or ever do possess, any _definite_
character. Generally speaking, poetry runs into finer and more
delicate details than prose; but the details are not poetical because
they are more delicate, but because they are employed so as to bring
out an affecting result. For instance, no one but a true poet would
have thought of exciting our pity for a bereaved father by describing
his way of locking the door of his house:
Perhaps to himself at that moment he said,
The key I must take, for my Ellen is dead;
But of this in my ears not a word did he speak;
And he went to the chase with a tear on his cheek.
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