to rate Wither below Keats (by virtue of these illustrations) in pure
poetic energy, it would, I think, be quite sound so to rate Suckling by
the witness of his lyric. For while Wither's mood, in its chosen activity,
is wholly surrendered to the poetic energy, Suckling's is not. It is
contaminated by one of those external activities which I have spoken of as
being hostile to poetry. Although he perceives his subject with the right
urgency, he is unwilling to be quite loyal to his perception. He makes
some concession to the witty insincerity of the society in which he lives,
and his poetry is soiled by the contact. It is not destroyed, not even
changed in its nature, but its gold is left for ever twisted in a baser
metal with which it does not suit. What we get is not a new compound with
the element that corresponds to poetic energy transmuted, but an
ill-sorted mixture, while Keats gives us the unblemished gold. We are
right in proclaiming his the finer achievement.

Keats and Wither will serve as examples with which to finish our argument.
In spite of all that has been said Keats takes higher rank as poet than
Wither? Yes, certainly, but not because the poetic energy in him was a
finer thing than the poetic energy that was in Wither. It was more
constant, which is a fact of no little importance; its temper appealed to
a much more general sympathy, a circumstance which cannot be left out of
the reckoning; it touched a far wider range of significant material.
These things give Keats his just superiority of rank, but they do not
deprive Wither, at his best moments, of the essential quality which is
with Keats, as with all poets, the one by which he makes his proudest
claim good. Nor need it be feared that in allowing Wither, with his rare
moments of withdrawn and rather pale perfection, this the highest of all
distinctions, we are making accession to the title of poet too easy. It
remains the most difficult of all human attainments. The difference between
the essential quality in those eight fragile lines and that in such verse