342 HBARma akd sbkikg, a vision'* 



the face of those we love, and in that mental mirror to see reflected the 

 inmost thoughts and treasures of the soul. Sweet is the bewitching 

 svren tongue of poetry, charming the senses, and pouring, in melodious 

 strains, all her riches upon the mind ; sweet and charming is all her 

 opulence of imagery, her grandeur of conception, her wildness of fancy ; 

 sweet is she in every shape, epic, pastoral, and didactic. True poetry, 

 embodied in living verses, having obtained " a local habitation and a 

 name," may be addressed to the ear ; but whence did the sublime bard 

 receive the flaming flood of inspiration ? whence did the Promethean heat 

 enter into his soul ? was it not from the " eye in a fine frenzy rolling," 

 taking in, in its rapturous survey, all the beauties of nature, and then 

 throwing their ideal forms into the laboratory of his mind, whence they 

 come forth dressed in a language of heaven's fire ? True, our immortal 

 epic bard was blind, and so was " the blind old man of Scio's rocky isle," 

 but then their orbs were not sightless, till they had first received the 

 treasure in their soul ; till their eyes, rolling over creation, had gazed 

 upon all its beauties, and their shadowy architypes lay by in concealed 

 magnificence, till afterward the tide of inspiration came, and swept them 

 forth like so many pearls from the unfathomed caves of imagination. 

 But why do I argue thus ? can there not be poetry without verses ? Lan- 

 guage is not surely the vital essence of poetry, 'tis only the medium by 

 which her grandeur is communicated to the uninspired ? Ascend some 

 lofty eminence, look out upon the boundless ocean winding along its 

 girdle of waves, look upward to the azure sweep of heaven, spreading 

 like another " ocean hung on high." Then see the earth, its waving 

 forest, " where things that own not man's dominion dwell," its lofty 

 mountain, its beethng crag, its green fields slumbering in the sunlight of 

 heaven ; its torrent rolling from the mountains, and its rivulet winding 

 slowly through the glade. Let your soul walk abroad in thought, and then 

 you will know the poetry of nature ; then you will know that poetry is 

 not dependent for its existence upon the adventitious aid of language — 

 no, the spirit of poetry is to the eye, not to the ear. The stars are the 

 poetry of heaven ; its wild magnificence of scenery is the poetry of earth. 

 Sweet, to be sure, is music, but place in opposition to it all these pleasures 

 of the sight. Sweet and pleasing is it to gaze upon the canvass fresh 

 and breathing from a master's hand, pourtraying in its various deport- 

 ments all the grandeur of Creation, and all the passion of the human 

 heart ; setting before us, as if in second life, all of earth's wonders, the 

 rude cataract, and the lofty crag, and the deep ravine, and the swelling 

 sea. Place a painter in the midst of nature's wildness, with but his 

 palette, his easel and his brush, and forthwith the magnificent scenery 

 is transferred in living colours to his canvass, and when the eye takes it 

 in at one glance, the mind is ready to acknowledge the transcendant 

 superiority of the art, and to stand an humble worshipper at the shrine 

 of a Poussin, a Claude, a Michael Angelo, and a Salvator Rosa." 



Here again Reason rose ; she said that she had heard enough now to 

 enable her to decide. At this moment, the attention of all was sud- 

 denly arrested by the enchanting melody of a pair of bullfinches, that 

 had settled themselves upon the outside of the window, and were now 

 tuning up the sweet symphony of their morning concert. All were in 

 rapture at the sounds, and it was thought that the Sense qf Hearing 



