demands special consideration. You may have arrived at the point of
keenly enjoying Lamb and yet be entirely unable to "see anything in"
such writings as *Kubla Khan* or Milton's *Comus*; and as for *Hamlet*
you may see nothing in it but a sanguinary tale "full of quotations."
Nevertheless it is the supreme productions which are capable
of yielding the supreme pleasures, and which *will* yield
the supreme pleasures when the pass-key to them has been acquired.
This pass-key is a comprehension of the nature of poetry.



Chapter IX

VERSE

There is a word, a "name of fear," which rouses terror
in the heart of the vast educated majority of the English-speaking race.
The most valiant will fly at the mere utterance of that word.
The most broad-minded will put their backs up against it.
The most rash will not dare to affront it. I myself have seen it
empty buildings that had been full; and I know that it will
scatter a crowd more quickly than a hose-pipe, hornets,
or the rumour of plague. Even to murmur it is to incur solitude,
probably disdain, and possibly starvation, as historical examples show.
That word is "poetry."


The profound objection of the average man to poetry can scarcely
be exaggerated. And when I say the average man, I do not mean
the "average sensual man"--any man who gets on to the top of the omnibus;