On the contrary, there is nothing either musical or natural in the
ordinary construction of language. It is a thing altogether arbitrary
and conventional. Neither in the sounds themselves, which are the
voluntary signs of certain ideas, nor in their grammatical arrangements
in common speech, is there any principle of natural imitation, or
correspondence to the individual ideas or to the tone of feeling with
which they are conveyed to others. The jerks, the breaks, the
inequalities and harshnesses of prose are fatal to the flow of a
poetical imagination, as a jolting road or a stumbling horse disturbs
the reverie of an absent man. But poetry "makes these odds all even".
It is the music of language, answering to the music of the mind,
untying, as it were, "the secret soul of harmony". Wherever any object
takes such a hold of the mind as to make us dwell upon it, and brood
over it, melting the heart in tenderness, or kindling it to a sentiment
of enthusiasm; wherever a movement of imagination or passion is
impressed on the mind, by which it seeks to prolong and repeat the
emotion, to bring all other objects into accord with it, and to give
the same movement of harmony, sustained and continuous, or gradually
varied, according to the occasion, to the sounds that express it--this
is poetry.
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