one shrinks back in distaste. If this is what is meant by keeping one's
audience in mind during composition, the true poet will have none of it.
Poe's account of his deliberate composition of the _Raven_ is
enough to estrange him from the poetic brotherhood. Yet we are face to
face with an issue that we, as the "gentle reader," cannot ignore. Shall
the poet, then, inshrine his visions as William Blake did, for his own
delight, and leave us unenlightened by his apocalypse?

There is a middle ground, and most poets have taken it. For in the
intervals of his inspiration the poet himself becomes, as has been
reiterated, a mere man, and except for the memories of happier moments
that abide with him, he is as dull as his reader. So when he labors to
make his inspiration articulate he is not coldly manipulating his
materials, like a pedagogue endeavoring to drive home a lesson, but for
his own future delight he is making the spirit of beauty incarnate. And
he will spare no pains to this end. Keats cries,

O for ten years, that I may overwhelm
Myself in poesy; so I may do the deed
My soul has to herself decreed.
[Footnote: _Sleep and Poetry_. See also the letter to his brother
George, April, 1817.]

Bryant warns the poet,

Deem not the framing of a deathless lay
The pastime of a drowsy summer day;
But gather all thy powers
And wreak them on the verse that thou dost weave.
[Footnote: _The Poet_.]