"Darken'd so, yet shone
Above them all the archangel; but his face
Deep scars of thunder had intrench'd, and care
Sat on his faded cheek ..."[84]

add two such lines as--

"And courage never to submit or yield
And what is else not to be overcome ..."[85]

and finish with the exquisite close to the loss of Proserpine, the loss

" ... which cost Ceres all that pain
To seek her through the world."[86]

These few lines, if we have tact and can use them, are enough even of
themselves to keep clear and sound our judgments about poetry, to save
us from fallacious estimates of it, to conduct us to a real estimate.

The specimens I have quoted differ widely from one another, but they
have in common this: the possession of the very highest poetical
quality. If we are thoroughly penetrated by their power, we shall find
that we have acquired a sense enabling us, whatever poetry may be laid
before us, to feel the degree in which a high poetical quality is
present or wanting there. Critics give themselves great labor to draw
out what in the abstract constitutes the characters of a high quality of
poetry. It is much better simply to have recourse to concrete examples;
--to take specimens of poetry of the high, the very highest quality, and
to say: The characters of a high quality of poetry are what is expressed