It is to prove that the metaphysical in Shakespeare's
sense of the word interpenetrates the physical, and serves to make us
see and feel it.
Poetry, if it is to be good for anything, must help us to live. It is
to this we come at last in our criticism, and if it does not help us to
live it may as well disappear, no matter what its fine qualities may be.
The help to live, however, that is most wanted is not remedies against
great sorrows. The chief obstacle to the enjoyment of life is its
dulness and the weariness which invades us because there is nothing to
be seen or done of any particular value. If the supernatural becomes
natural and the natural becomes supernatural, the world regains its
splendour and charm. Lines may be drawn from their predecessors to
Coleridge and the Wordsworths, but the work they did was distinctly
original, and renewed proof was given of the folly of despair even when
fertility seems to be exhausted. There is always a hidden conduit open
into an unknown region whence at any moment streams may rush and renew
the desert with foliage and flowers.
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