Read it through once

It may be objected that this doctrine refuses to poetry a certain grave office — that of instruction — and even that it denies poetry the loftier function of moral influence. To such objections I answer that a poem may be highly moral without being moralistic. The poet who aims to teach is inevitably brought into the region of the didactic. Moral beauty exists, but it must exist as beauty. The expression of a moral truth in terms which are poetical is not the same thing as the direct promulgation of that truth under the guise of poetry.