idealist of art for art's sake, but an
idealist of humanity for humanity's sake; one to whom humanity, even in
its lowest degradations and vilest perversions, is sublimely
sacred;--one to whom life offered but one tragedy, that of human souls
flying like Cain from a guilt-stricken paradise, but pursued by the
remorse of innocence, and scourged by the consciousness of their own
infinitude.

But the poet's own words are the best explanation of his aim and
intention:--

"Poetry, though one delve ever so little into his own self,
interrogate his own soul, recall his memories of enthusiasms,
has no other end than itself; it cannot have any other aim,
and no poem will be so great, so noble, so truly worthy of
the name of poem, as that which shall have been written
solely for the pleasure of writing a poem. I do not wish to
say that poetry should not ennoble manners--that its final
result should not be to raise man above vulgar interests.
That would be an evident absurdity. I say that if the poet
has pursued a moral end, he has diminished his poetic force,
and it would not be imprudent to wager that his work would be
bad. Poetry cannot, under penalty of death or forfeiture,
assimilate itself to science or morality. It has not Truth
for object, it has only itself. Truth's modes of
demonstration are different and elsewhere. Truth has nothing
to do with ballads; all that constitutes the charm, the
irresistible grace of a ballad, would strip Truth of its
authority and power. Cold, calm, impassive, the demonstrative
temperament rejects the diamonds and flowers of the muse; it
is, therefore, the absolute inverse of the poetic
temperament. Pure Intellect aims at Truth, Taste shows us
Beauty, and the Moral Sense teaches us Duty. It is true that
the middle term has intimate connection with the two
extremes, and only separates itself from Moral Sense by a
difference so slight that Aristotle did not hesitate to
class some of its delicate operations amongst the virtues.
And accordingly what, above all, exasperates the man of taste
is the spectacle of vice, is its deformity, its
disproportions. Vice threatens the just and true, and revolts
intellect and conscience; but as an outrage upon harmony, as
dissonance, it would particularly wound certain poetic minds,
and I do not thi