with his famous "verse being but an ornament
and no cause to poetry" and "it is not timing
and versing that maketh a poet." It is Shel-
ley with his "The distinction between poets
and prose writers in a vulgar error. . . . Plato
was essentially a poet -- the truth and splen-
dor of his imagery, and the melody of his
language, are the most intense that it is pos-
sible to conceive. . . . Lord Bacon was a poet."
It is Coleridge with his "The writings of
Plato, and Bishop Taylor, and the Theoria
Sacra of Burnet, furnish undeniable proofs
that poetry of the highest kind may be written
without metre."

In such passages as these, how generous are
Sidney, Shelley, and Coleridge to the prose-
men! And yet these same poet-critics, in
dozens of other passages, have explained the
fundamental justification of metre, rhyme
and stanza as elements in the harmony of
verse. Harmony may be attained, it is true,
by rhythms too complicated to be easily
scanned in metrical feet, and by measures
which disregard rhyme and stanza; and poets,
as well as critics, by giving exclusive attention
to a single element in harmony, are able to
persuade themselves for the moment that all

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