First we must consider the commonly accepted opinion that a lyric is an
expression of personal emotion, with its implication that there is an
essential difference between a lyric and, say, dramatic or narrative
poetry. A lyric, it is true, is the expression of personal emotion, but
then so is all poetry, and to suppose that there are several kinds of
poetry, differing from each other in essence, is to be deceived by wholly
artificial divisions which have no real being. To talk of dramatic
poetry, epic poetry and narrative poetry is to talk of three different
things--epic, drama and narrative; but each is combined with a fourth thing
in common, which is poetry, which, in turn, is in itself of precisely the
same nature as the lyric of which we are told that it is yet a further
kind of poetry. Let us here take a passage from a play and consider it in
relation to this suggestion:


CLOWN. I wish you all joy of the worm.

CLEOPATRA. Farewell.

CLOWN. You must think this, look you, that the worm will do his kind.

CLEOPATRA. Ay, ay; farewell.

CLOWN. Look you, the worm is not to be trusted but in the keeping of
wise people; for indeed there is no goodness in the worm.

CLEOPATRA. Take thou no care; it shall be heeded.

CLOWN. Very good. Give it nothing, I pray you, for it is not worth
the feeding.