Several mythical explanations for the stupidity of the poet's own times
have been offered in verse. Browning says that poetry is like wine; it
must age before it grows sweet. [Footnote: _Epilogue to the Pacchiarotto
Volume._] Emerson says the poet's generation is deafened by the thunder
of his voice. [Footnote: _Solution._] A minor writer says that poetry
must be written in one's life-blood, so that it necessarily kills one
before it is appreciated. [Footnote: William Reed Dunroy, _The Way of
the World_ (1897).] Another suggests that a subtle electric change is
worked in one's poems by death. [Footnote: Richard Gilder, _A Poet's
Question._] But the only reasonable explanation of the failure of the
poet's own generation to appreciate him seems to be that offered by
Shelley, in the _Defense of Poetry:_

No living poet ever arrived at the fullness of his fame; the
jury which sits in judgment upon a poet, belonging as he does to
all time, must be composed of his peers.

Of course the contempt of the average poet for his contemporaries is not
the sort of thing to endear him to them. Their self-respect almost
forces them to ignore the poet's talents. And unfortunately, in addition
to taking a top-lofty attitude, the poet has, until recently, gone much
farther, and while despising the public has tried to improve it. Most
nineteenth century poetry might be described in Mrs. Browning's words,
as

Antidotes
Of medicated music, answering for
Mankind's forlornest uses.
[Footnote: _Sonnets from the Portuguese._]