I must admit that a beautiful poem has always given me a pure gratification; whilst the reading of the best discourse, whether of a Roman orator or of a modern parliamentary speaker or of a preacher, has always been mingled with an unpleasant feeling of disapprobation, of a treacherous art, which means to move me in important matters like machines to a judgment that must lose all weight for them on quiet reflection. Readiness and accuracy in speaking (which taken together constitute rhetoric) belong to beautiful art; but the art of the orator, the art of availing one's self of the weaknesses of men for one's own design (whether these be well meant or even actually good, does not matter) is worthy of no respect.
We must not confuse eloquence with poetry, though there are numerous prose pieces which though eloquent are yet poetry. Mere wordiness and grandiloquence may sound like ecstasy yet lack that quality.
What can be said for famous passages like Burke's sympathetic outburst for Marie Antoinette? I see no reason why we should not call this poetry, though it is not poetry of a high order. The objection to it is that the orator's emotion is misdirected; he wastes sympathy on a dead queen who was at the head of a pernicious system, and ignores the miseries of the thousands of poor Frenchmen. To that extent our appreciation of it is limited. For even though Burke was right when he lamented that the age of chivalry was gone, he did not state that the time of exploitation of man was over, and the question of exploitation is probably more important than that of chivalry.
There is affinity of oratory then to poetry, as it is calculated to arouse the emotions of the audience. But the political oration is usually not poetry, as it has a tendency to the ephemeral. No one will deny, however, that there is genuine prose poetry in orations by Demosthenes, Cicero, Burke, Webster and Sumner.
What is true of the oration, is also true of the sermon. Sermons like those of Jeremy Taylor and Sterne contain poetry; they have ecstasy.
There has also been considerable confusion as to how much poetry exists in witty and humorous writings and in comedy. In other words, the connection between poetry and tears is well established, but that between poetry and laughter is vague. We may say that most of the so-called humorous verse is not poetry at all, for the merely funny does not merit the term poetry. Yet there is poetry in the humorous writings of men like Mark Twain and O. Henry, on account of the ecstatic effect upon the reader. In reading them one occasionally feels impelled to tears, while moved to laughter. A mere witticism is not poetry, but it may have certain qualities, such as a bit of wisdom conveying ecstasy, which makes it poetry. The wit of Heine and Voltaire often belongs to this class. When laughter is bound up with a profound idea or emotion, the work expressing the laugh becomes poetry. However, laughter that springs from seeing horse-play or the mere ludicrous, is not poetry. But the portrayals of Sancho Panza, Falstaff and Parson Adams are poems.