images into rhythmical and metrical designs. In each of his functions--as
"seer," as "maker," and as "singer"--he shows himself a true creator.
Criticism no longer attempts to act as his "law-giver," to assert what he
may or may not do. The poet is free, like every creative artist, to make a
beautiful object in any way he can. And nevertheless criticism--watching
countless poets lovingly for many a century, observing their various
endowments, their manifest endeavors, their victories and defeats,
observing likewise the nature of language, that strange medium (so much
stranger than any clay or bronze!) through which poets are compelled to
express their conceptions--criticism believes that poetry, like
each of the sister arts, has its natural province, its own field of the
beautiful. We have tried in this chapter to suggest the general direction
of that field, without looking too narrowly for its precise boundaries. In
W. H. Hudson's _Green Mansions_ the reader will remember how a few sticks
and stones, laid upon a hilltop, were used as markers to indicate the
outlines of a continent. Criticism, likewise, needs its poor sticks and
stones of commonplace, if it is to point out any roadway. Our own road
leads first into the difficult territory of the poet's imaginings, and
then into the more familiar world of the poet's words.



CHAPTER III

THE POET'S IMAGINATION

"The essence of poetry is _invention_; such invention as, by producing
something unexpected, surprises and delights."
SAMUEL JOHNSON