also the spectacle of a great number of perfectly realised visions being
related to each other with excellent harmony; we get, further, a great
moral exaltation--again perfectly realised by the poetic energy, and we
get, finally, considerable subtlety--far more than is generally allowed--of
psychological detail. From all these things, the architectonics, the zeal
for justice and the revelation of character, we get an added and wholesome
delight which gives Milton's work a place of definitely greater eminence
than Herrick's song in the record of human activity. In effect, Milton
besides being a poet, which is the greatest of all distinctions, becomes,
by possession of those other qualities, a great man as well, and I think
that this is really what we mean when we speak of a great poet. Without his
poetic faculty, although he would fall in the scale of human distinction,
which is not at all the same thing as renown, below, say, so humble a
personality yet so true a poet as John Clare[2], Milton would still be a
great man, while Herrick without his poetry would be indistinguishable from
the crowd. And the great man is as clearly evident in Milton's poetry as he
is clearly not evident in Herrick's.

[2: It may be asked: "Do you really think that a poet who has left
no other record of himself than a page or two of songs, even perfect songs,
can claim a greater distinction than a great man who is not a poet?" Let me
say, once for all, that I do think so. To have written one perfect song
is to have given witness and the only kind of witness (in common with the
media of other arts) that is finally authoritative, that at least one
supremely exacting mood has been perfectly realised; that is to say, one
moment of life has been perfectly experienced. And since, with our human
conception, we can see no good or desirable end beyond the perfect
experience of life, the man who proves to us that he has done this, no
matter though it has been but for a moment, is more distinguished--that is,
more definitely set apart in his own achievement--than the man who, with