380 LEISURE-TIME STUDIES. 



may subserve the functions of poetry as poetry. But I 

 would as strongly maintain that the criterion of perfect 

 poetry is not elegance but truth ; and that in proportion as 

 the poet's knowledge of nature is true, so will his work re- 

 present the thoughts which have power to charm, instruct, 

 and better mankind through all time. I know of no better 

 example of the complete reconcilement of poesy and an 

 accurate knowledge of nature than is contained in Tenny- 

 son's " Two Voices." Let any one watch the birth of a 

 dragon-fly, and say whether or not the poet has written 

 sweetly and well and all the more sweetly, because his 

 words are true : 



" To day I saw the dragon-fly 

 Come from the wells where he did lie. 



"An inner impulse rent the veil 

 Of his old husk : from head to tail 

 Came out clear plates of sapphire mail. 



" He dried his wings : like gauze they grew : 

 Through crofts and pastures wet with dew 

 A living flash of light he flew. " 



In a closing sentence, permit me to point out what I 

 conceive to be the true place and function of poetry as 

 related to other modes of modern thought. That poetry 

 must ever assert a powerful influence on man's estate, no 

 reasonable being may doubt. It is too closely bound up 

 with the personal history of man in all stages of civilisation, 

 too nearly related to his inmost mind, as the expression of 

 his deepest emotions, to fall into decay even when it lights 

 upon a grossly utilitarian time. The song of victory, the 

 psean of joy, the " lo triumphe " of the conqueror, or the 

 coronach and lament for the dead, are expressions wherein 

 the true poetry of our nature bursts forth in spite of our- 

 selves; whilst developing from these more rugged and 

 primitive sources, as a softened stream passes sidewards 

 from a mountain torrent, we find the cultured soul of the 



