poetic emotion is controlling, be it the "emotions" or anything else,
cannot hope for expression that catches its peculiar properties. To do this
in poetry is the supreme distinction not of rhythms, but of words. The
preponderance of the five-foot blank-verse line in the work of, say,
Shakespeare and Milton, is so great that we can safely say that their rank
as poets would not be lower than it is if they had written nothing else.
Clearly their constancy to this metre was not the result of any technical
deficiency. Even if Milton had not written the choruses of _Samson
Agonistes_ and Shakespeare his songs, nobody would be so absurd as
to suggest that they adopted this five-foot line and spent their mighty
artistry in sending supple and flowing variety through its external
uniformity, because they could not manage any other. They used it because
they found that its rhythm perfectly expressed their poetic emotion, and
because the formal relation of one line to another satisfied the instinct
for co-ordination, and for the full expression of the significance of their
subject-matter they relied not upon their rhythms, but upon their choice
of words. The belief that when a poem is written there is one and only one
metrical scheme that could possibly be used for that particular occasion is
an amiable delusion that should be laid aside with such notions as that the
poet makes his breakfast on dew and manna. Once the poem is written we
may feel indeed, if it be a good one, that any change in the form is
impossible, but when the poet was about to write it we may be sure that
he quite deliberately weighed one form against another before making his
choice. It may even be true that he will sometimes find the shape of his
poem running to his tongue as it were unbidden, but this certainty of
selection is really in itself the result of long and, perhaps, subconscious
deliberation. The point is that the chosen form must in any case express
the poetic emotion, but that its particular election is a personal whim,
wholly satisfactory in its result, rather than a divine necessity. _The
Ode to the West Wind_ and the _Stanzas written in Dejection_ are