Upon this occasion I will request permission to add a few words
closely connected with THE THORN and many other Poems in these
Volumes. There is a numerous class of readers who imagine that the
same words cannot be repeated without tautology: this is a great
error: virtual tautology is much oftener produced by using different
words when the meaning is exactly the same. Words, a Poet's words
more particularly, ought to be weighed in the balance of feeling and
not measured by the space which they occupy upon paper. For the
Reader cannot be too often reminded that Poetry is passion: it is
the history or science of feelings: now every man must know that an
attempt is rarely made to communicate impassioned feelings without
something of an accompanying consciousness of the inadequateness of
our own powers, or the deficiencies of language. During such efforts
there will be a craving in the mind, and as long as it is
unsatisfied the Speaker will cling to the same words, or words of
the same character. There are also various other reasons why
repetition and apparent tautology are frequently beauties of the
highest kind.
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