CHAPTER II

THE MORTAL COIL

If I might dwell where Israfel
Hath dwelt, and he where I,
He might not sing so wildly well
A mortal melody,

sighs Poe, and the envious note vibrates in much of modern song. There
is an inconsistency in the poet's attitude,--the same inconsistency that
lurks in the most poetical of philosophies. Like Plato, the poet sees
this world as the veritable body of his love, Beauty,--and yet it is to
him a muddy vesture of decay, and he is ever panting for escape from it
as from a prison house.

One might think that the poet has less cause for rebellion against the
flesh than have other men, inasmuch as the bonds that enthrall feebler
spirits seem to have no power upon him. A blind Homer, a mad Tasso, a
derelict Villon, an invalid Pope, most wonderful of all--a woman Sappho,
suggest that the differences in earthly tabernacles upon which most of
us lay stress are negligible to the poet, whose burning genius can
consume all fetters of heredity, sex, health, environment and material
endowment. Yet in his soberest moments the poet is wont to confess that
there are varying degrees in the handicap which genius suffers in the
mid-earth life; in fact ever since the romantic movement roused in him
an intense curiosity as to his own nature, he has reflected a good deal
on the question of what earthly conditions will least cabin and confine
his spirit.