Religion, Love, Ambition, War, some
fierce antagonism, or it may be, some petty annoyance must break the
round of perfect circulation, or no spark, no joy, no event can be.
The poet rambling through the fields or the forest, absorbed in
contemplation to that degree, that his walk is but a pretty dream,
would never awake to precise thought, if the scream of an eagle, the
cries of a crow or curlew near his head did not break the sweet
continuity. Nay the finest lyrics of the poet come of this unequal
parentage; the imps of matter beget such child on the soul, fair
daughter of God. Nature mixes facts with thoughts to yield a poem.
But the gift of immortality is of the mother's side. In the spirit
in which they are written is the date of their duration, and never in
the magnitude of the facts. Everything lasts in proportion to its
beauty. In proportion as it was not polluted by any wilfulness of
the writer, but flowed from his mind after the divine order of cause
and effect, it was not his but nature's, and shared the sublimity of
the sea and sky. That which is truly told, nature herself takes in
charge against the whims and injustice of men.
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