178 BY-WAVS AND BIRD-NOTES. 
cheek and the sharp fragrance of the salt 
marshes in my nostrils. 
Some say that the poetry of the future will 
be the songs of science, that we are now in 
the state of transition from romance to the 
real. Sobe it if it must; but after all I should 
rather sing with my face to the front, if I were 
a poet. Science is noble and good, but the 
progress of the soul is better. Genius is a 
bird of morning, and its song is always the ex- 
ponent of the most recent pulse of human pas- 
sion, human knowledge of beauty, human 
sympathy with the joys and sorrows of the 
world. The rocks may give up the last secret 
of their hearts; the sea, too, may disgorge its 
treasures ; but at last it is the soul of man that 
is the poet’s field of study—the ‘soul that 
walked with God upon chaos in the dark hour 
before the dawn of creation, the soul that still 
walks with him as the morning twilight slowly 
broadens into perfect day. It is this soul that 
longs backward and longs forward for the un- 
known, haunted all the time with some dreamy 
memory of its ancient chrysalis state, and feel- 
ing all the time how close it is approaching to 
the hour when its wings shall be full-grown. 
Much has been spoken and written to dem- 
onstrate that the revelation of the rocks is or is 
not in conflict with the revelations of the Bible. 
To me the whole discussion has the ring of 
blasphemy. Let science go on enlightening 
our minds and let Christianity go on making 
glorious the paths of men. There is room 
and great need for both. Walking between 
the two, with a hand on the shoulder of either, 
let poesy gather the bird-songs and perfumes 
