216 BIRDS AND POETS 
muting them into strong poetic nutriment, and the 
extent to which all his main poems are grounded 
in the deepest principles of modern philosophical 
inquiry. 
Nearly all the old literatures may be said to have 
been founded upon fable, and upon a basis and even 
superstructure of ignorance, that, however charming 
it may be, we have not now got, and could not keep 
if we had. The bump of wonder, the feeling of the 
marvelous, a kind of half-pleasing fear, like that of 
children in the dark or in the woods, were largely 
operative with the old poets, and I believe are ne- 
cessary to any eminent success in this field; but 
they seem nearly to have died out of the modern 
mind, like organs there is no longer any use for. 
The poetic temperament has not yet adjusted itself 
to the new lights, to science, and to the vast fields 
and expanses opened up in the physical cosmos by 
astronomy and geology, and in the spiritual or intel- 
lectual world by the great German metaphysicians. 
The staple of a large share of our poetic literature is 
yet mainly the result of the long age of fable and 
myth that now lies behind us. “Leaves of Grass ” 
is, perhaps, the first serious and large attempt at an 
expression in poetry of a knowledge of the earth ag 
one of the orbs, and of man as a microcosm of the 
whole, and to give to the imagination these new and 
true fields of wonder and romance. In it fable and 
superstition are at an end, priestcraft is at an end, 
skepticism and doubt are at an end, with all the 
misgivings and dark forebodings that have dogged 
