("Poetry must be simple, sensuous, or impassioned; this man is neither simple, sensuous, nor impassioned; therefore he is not a poet")No man had ever heard a nightingale,
When once a keen-eyed naturalist was stirred To study and define—what is a bird,
To classify by rote and book, nor fail To mark its structure and to note the scale Whereon its song might possibly be heard.
Thus far, no farther;—so he spake the word.
When of a sudden,—hark, the nightingale!
Oh deeper, higher than he could divine That all-unearthly, untaught strain!
He saw The plain, brown warbler, unabashed. "Not mine" (He cried) "the error of this fatal flaw.
No bird is this, it soars beyond my line,
Were it a bird, 'twould answer to my law."
