I have little need to revise my opinion of any of the great names of
English literature. I probably make more strenuous demands upon him
who aspires to be a poet than ever before. I see more clearly than
ever before that sweetened prose put up in verse form does not make
poetry any more than sweetened water put in the comb in the hive makes
honey. Many of our would-be young poets bring us the crude nectar from
the fields--fine descriptions of flowers, birds, sunsets, and so
on--and expect us to accept them as honey. The quality of the man
makes all the difference in the world. A great nature can describe
birds and flowers and clouds and sunsets and spring and autumn
greatly.
Dean Swift quotes Sir Philip Sidney as saying that the "chief life of
modern versifying consists in rhyme." Swift agrees with him. "Verse
without rhyme," he says, "is a body without a soul, or a bell without
a clapper." He thinks Milton's "Paradise Lost" would be greatly
improved if it had rhyme. This, he says, would make it "more heroic
and sonorous than it is."
Unobtrusive rhyme may be a help in certain cases, but what modern
reader would say that a poem without rhyme is a body without a soul?
This would exclude many of the noblest productions of English
literature.