In this, the lowest sense, a man might attribute the name of a poem
to the well-known enumeration of the days in the several months:
Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November, &c.
and others of the same class and purpose. And as a particular pleasure
is found in anticipating the recurrence of sounds and quantities, all
compositions that have this charm superadded, whatever be their
contents, _may_ be entitled poems.
So much for the superficial form. A difference of object and contents
supplies an additional ground of distinction. The immediate purpose
may be the communication of truths; either of truth absolute and
demonstrable, as in works of science; or of facts experienced and
recorded, as in history. Pleasure, and that of the highest and most
permanent kind, may result from the attainment of the end; but it is
not itself the immediate end. In other works the communication of
pleasure may be the immediate purpose; and though truth, either moral
or intellectual, ought to be the ultimate end, yet this will distinguish
the character of the author, not the class to which the work belongs.
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