mere strenuosity of the campaign,

Unless the artist keep up open roads
Betwixt the seen and unseen, bursting through
The best of our conventions with his best,
The speakable, imaginable best
God bids him speak, to prove what lies beyond
Both speech and imagination.
[Footnote: _Aurora Leigh_.]

Thus speaks Mrs. Browning.

The reforms that make a stir in the world, being merely external, mean
little or nothing apart from the impulse that started them, and the poet
alone is powerful to stir the impulse of reform in humanity. "To be
persuaded rests usually with ourselves," said Longinus, "but genius
brings force sovereign and irresistible to bear upon every hearer."
[Footnote: _On the Sublime_.] The poet, in ideal mood, is as
innocent of specific designs upon current morality as was Pippa, when
she wandered about the streets of Asolo, but the power of his songs is
ever as insuperable as was that of hers. It is for this reason that
Emerson advises the poet to leave hospital building and statute revision
for men of duller sight than he:

Oft shall war end and peace return
And cities rise where cities burn
Ere one man my hill shall climb
Who can turn the golden rhyme.
Let them manage how they may,
Heed thou only Saadi's lay.