You have been reproaching me, I dare say, for my long neglect of your
last letter, but you might have saved yourself that trouble, as my
own conscience has scourged me repeatedly these two months about it.
The truth is I have been a good deal harassed in several ways, and
now sit down, in the midst of a headache, to write, when I can hardly
tell which end of my pen is paper-wards. I will attempt, however, to
return your questions legible if not intelligible answers. There have
been so many 'Pleasures' of so-and-so that I should almost counsel
you against baptizing your poem on Spring the 'Pleasures' of
anything. Besides, when a poem is so designated it is almost
assuredly prejudged as deficient in action (about which you appear
solicitous). 'The Pleasures of Spring' from you, identified as you
are with descriptive poesy, would almost without doubt sound in the
public ear as an announcement of a series of literary scene
paintings. Beautiful as these may be, and certainly would be from
your pencil, there is a deadness about them which tends to chill the
reader: he must be animated with something of a livelier prospect,
or, as Hamlet says of Polonius, 'he sleeps'. It may be affirmed
without hesitation that, however independent of description a drama
may be, no descriptive poem is independent of something like dramatic
spirit to give it interest with human beings. How dull a thing would
even the great descriptive poem of the Creation be without Adam and
Eve, their history and hapless fall, to enliven it! But I cannot see
why you should not infuse a dramatic spirit into your poem on Spring,
which is only the development of the living principle in Nature. See
how full of life those descriptive scenes in the 'Midsummer Night's
Dream' and the 'Winter's Tale' are. Characters may describe the
beauties or qualities of Spring just as well as the author, and
nothing prevents a story going through the season, so as to gather up
flowers and point out every beautiful feature in the landscape on its
way. Thomson has a little of this, but not enough. Imagine his
'Lavinia' spread out into a longer story, incidents and descriptions
perpetually relieving each other! Imagine this, and you have a model
for your poem. Allan Ramsay's 'Gentle Shepherd' would be still
better, only that his poem is cast into actual dramatic characters.
Besides, though with plenty of feeling and a good deal of homestead
poetry, he wants imagination, elegance, and a certain scorn of mere
earth, which is essential to the constitution of a true poet. You
want none of these, but you want his vivacity, character, and action:
I mean to say you have not as yet exhibited these qualities. The
hooks with which you have fished for praise in the ocean of
literature have not been garnished with live bait, and none of us can
get a bite without it. How few read 'Comus' who have the 'Corsair' by
heart! Why? Because the former, which is almost dark with the
excessive bright of its own glory, is deficient in human passions and
emotions, while the latter possesses these although little else.
Your sincere friend and brother poet,