partial exception when I said that a lyric was a poem where the pure poetic
energy was not notably associated with other energies. When a poet writes
a poem of corresponding lines and stanzas or in a form of which the
structural outline is decided by a definable law--as in the sonnet--he is
in effect obeying the impulse of the co-ordinating energy, and the use of
rhyme is another sign of obedience to the same impulse. It so happens
that this energy, next to the poetic energy, is the most impressive
and satisfying of all mental activities, and while poetry may exist
independently of it, the fact remains that it very rarely does so. A very
curious fallacy about this matter has sometimes obtained support. The
adherents of what is called free verse, not content, as they should
thankfully be, if they can achieve poetry in their chosen medium, are
sometimes tempted to claim that it is the peculiar virtue of their
manner--which, let me say it again, may be entirely admirable--that it
enables the structure of verse to keep in constant correspondence with
change of emotion. The notion is, of course, a very convenient one when you
wish to escape the very exacting conditions of formal control, and have not
the patience or capacity to understand their difficulties, and that it is
professed by many who do so wish is doubtless. But there are other serious
and gifted people, loyally trying to serve a great art, who hold this view,
and on their account consideration is due to it. But it is none the less a
fallacy, and doubly so. In the first place, the change of line-lengths and
rhythms in a short poem written in "free verse" is nearly always arbitrary,
and does not succeed in doing what is claimed for it in this direction,
while it often does succeed in distressing the ear and so obscuring the
sense, though that is by the way. It is not as though given rhythms and
line-lengths had any peculiar emotional significance attached to them.
A dirge may be in racing anapaests, laughter in the most sedate iambic
measure; a solemn invocation may move in rapid three-foot lines, while
grave heroic verse may contain the gayest of humours. In a long work,