A poem is the incarnation of this aroma, the condensation of it into form.  A drop of dew symbolizes a poem; for a true poem should be oval, without angles, transparent, compact, complete in itself, graceful from inward quality and fullness.  It may be of a few lines, or of hundreds or thousands; but there must be no superfluous line or word.  A poem drops out of the brain a fragrant distillation.  A poem must be a spiritual whole; that is, not only with the parts organized into proportioned unity, but with the whole and the parts springing out of the idea, the sentiment, form obedient to substance, body to soul, the sensuous life to the inward.  For enduring, ruddy incarnation, the subject, whether it be incident, scene, sentiment, or action, must have within its core this essential aroma.  The poet (and the test of his poetic capacity is his gift to draw the fragrance out of such a core) keeps his conception distinctly and vividly before him.  The conception or ideal prefigurement of his theme precedes him, like the pillar of fire in the night, drawing him onward surely and rapidly.  Otherwise he lags and flags and stumbles.  The spring into poetry is on a flash, which not only lights up the thought on which it springs, but renews, recreates it.

A man’s chief aim in life should be to better himself, to keep bettering himself; and in this high duty the poet helps him.  Poetry is the great educator of the feelings.  By seizing and holding up to view the noblest and cleanest and best there is in human life, poetry elevates and refines the feelings.  It reveals and strengthens the spirituality of our nature.  Poetry tunes the mind.  Faculty of admiration is one of our super-animal privileges.  Poetry purges and guides admiration; and the sounder and higher our admirations, the more admirable ourselves become.

The best poetry turns the mind inward upon itself, and sweetens its imaginations.  Our imaginations, that is, our inward thoughts, plans, shaping our silent, interior doings, these are the chief part of us; for out of these come most of our outward acts, and all of their color.  As is the preponderance of the man, will be this inward brood.  The timid man will imagine dangers, the anxious man troubles, the hopeful man successes, the avaricious man accumulations, the ambitious possession of power; and the poetic man will imagine all sorts of perfections, be ever yearning for a better and higher, be ever building beautiful air-castles, earthy or moral, material or ethereal, according as the sensuous or the spiritual predominates in his nature.  Beckford, of a sensuously poetic nature, having command of vast wealth, brought his castle in the air down to the ground, and dazzled his contemporaries with Fonthill Abbey.  Not only are Fonthill Abbeys and all beautiful buildings achieved through the warm action of the poetic faculty, but all improvements are brought about by its virtue.  Out of this deep, inward, creative power issue all theories and practice for the bettering of human conditions.  All original founders and discoverers are poets:  the most poetic French mind I know is that of Fourier.