It is possible therefore that the poem, as it existed at certain stages
in its growth, may correspond roughly with the poem as it exists in the
memories of various readers. A reader who is fond of the poem and often
thinks of it, but remembers only half the words and perhaps fills up the
gaps with his own words, may possess something like the poem as it was
when half-made. There are readers again who retain only what they would
call the 'idea' of the poem; and the poem _may_ have begun from such an
idea. Others will forget all the words, and will not profess to remember
even the 'meaning,' but believe that they possess the 'spirit' of the
poem. And what they possess may have, I think, an immense value. The
poem, of course, it is not; but it may answer to the state of
imaginative feeling or emotional imagination which was the germ of the
poem. This is, in one sense, quite definite: it would not be the germ of
a decidedly different poem: but in another sense it is indefinite,
comparatively structureless, more a 'stimmung' than an idea.
Such correspondences, naturally, must be very rough, if only because the
readers have been at one time in contact with the fully grown poem.