Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/198

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AURORA LEIGH.
That bosom seems to beat still, or at leastIt sets ours beating. This is living art,Which thus presents, and thus records true life.'
What form is best for poems? Let me thinkOf forms less, and the external. Trust the spirit,As sovran nature does, to make the form;For otherwise we only imprison spirit,And not embody. Inward evermoreTo outward,—so in life, and so in art,Which still is life.Five acts to make a play.And why not fifteen? Why not ten? or seven?What matter for the number of the leaves,Supposing the tree lives and grows? exactThe literal unities of time and place,When 'tis the essence of passion to ignoreBoth time and place? Absurd. Keep up the fireAnd leave the generous flames to shape themselves.
'Tis true the stage requires obsequiousnessTo this or that convention; 'exit' hereAnd 'enter' there; the points for clapping, fixed,Like Jacob's white-peeled rods before the rams;And all the close-curled imagery clippedIn manner of their fleece at shearing time.Forget to prick the galleries to the heartPrecisely at the fourth act,—culminateOur five pyramidal acts with one act more,—We're lost so! Shakspeare's ghost could scarcely plead
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