Lyrical Ballads With Other Poems, 1800, vol 1 | Page 7

depend
our taste and our moral feelings. It would not have been a useless
employment to have applied this principle to the consideration of metre,
and to have shewn that metre is hence enabled to afford much pleasure,
and to have pointed out in what manner that pleasure is produced. But
my limits will not permit me to enter upon this subject, and I must
content myself with a general summary.
I have said that Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings:
it takes its origin from emotion recollected in
tranquillity: the
emotion is contemplated till by a species of reaction the tranquillity
gradually disappears, and an emotion, similar to that which was before
the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself
actually exist in the mind. In this mood successful composition
generally begins, and in a mood similar to this it is carried on; but the
emotion, of whatever kind and in whatever degree, from various causes
is qualified by various pleasures, so that in describing any passions
whatsoever, which are voluntarily described, the mind will upon the
whole be in a state of enjoyment. Now if Nature be thus cautious in
preserving in a state of enjoyment a being thus employed, the Poet
ought to profit by the lesson thus held forth to him, and ought
especially to take care, that whatever passions he communicates to his
Reader, those passions, if his Reader's mind be sound and vigorous,
should always be accompanied with an overbalance of pleasure. Now
the music of harmonious metrical language, the sense of difficulty
overcome, and the blind association of pleasure which has been
previously received from works of rhyme or metre of the same or
similar construction, all these imperceptibly make up a complex feeling
of delight, which is of the most important use in tempering the painful
feeling which will always be found intermingled with powerful
descriptions of the deeper passions. This effect is always produced in
pathetic and impassioned poetry; while in lighter compositions the ease
and gracefulness with which the Poet manages his numbers are
themselves confessedly a principal source of the gratification of the
Reader. I might perhaps include all which it is necessary to say upon
this subject by affirming what few persons will deny, that of two
descriptions either of passions, manners, or characters, each of them

equally well executed, the one in prose and the other in verse, the verse
will be read a hundred times where the prose is read once. We see that
Pope by the power of verse alone, has contrived to render the plainest
common sense interesting, and even frequently to invest it with the
appearance of passion. In consequence of these convictions I related in
metre the Tale of GOODY BLAKE and HARRY GILL, which is one
of the rudest of this collection. I wished to draw attention to the truth
that the power of the human imagination is sufficient to produce such
changes even in our physical nature as might almost appear miraculous.
The truth is an important one; the fact (for it is a fact) is a valuable
illustration of it. And I have the satisfaction of knowing that it has been
communicated to many hundreds of people who would never have
heard of it, had it not been narrated as a Ballad, and in a more
impressive metre than is usual in Ballads.
Having thus adverted to a few of the reasons why I have written in
verse, and why I have chosen subjects from common life, and
endeavoured to bring my language near to the real language of men, if I
have been too minute in pleading my own cause, I have at the same
time been treating a subject of general interest; and it is for this reason
that I request the Reader's permission to add a few words with
reference solely to these particular poems, and to some defects which
will probably be found in them. I am sensible that my associations must
have sometimes been particular instead of general, and that,
consequently, giving to things a false importance, sometimes from
diseased impulses I may have written upon unworthy subject; but I am
less apprehensive on this account, than that my language may
frequently have suffered from those arbitrary
connections of feelings
and ideas with particular words, from which no man can altogether
protect himself. Hence I have no doubt that in some instances feelings
even of the ludicrous may be given to my Readers by expressions
which appeared to me tender and pathetic. Such faulty expressions,
were I convinced they were faulty at present, and that they must
necessarily continue to be so, I would willingly take all reasonable
pains to correct. But it is dangerous to make these alterations on the
simple authority