The Poetry of Shelter. 



IT requires no labored mental effort to com- 

 prehend the philosophy of shelter ; but what 

 of this necessity of our lives in its poetical 

 aspect ? That it has such an aspect may, in- 

 deed, be asked, and it is not strange that 

 there should be serious doubts as to its exist- 

 ence. But shelter is a good deal more than 

 the roof and walls of your accustomed home ; 

 much more than the protection of some awning, 

 or umbrella, or the open doorway of a friend's 

 house, however welcome you may be therein. 

 Daily and in innumerable ways we are taking 

 shelter, even to the seeking it, from the results of 

 our blunders, in ways that are open to question. 

 But all this is prosy to the point of dulness. 

 Happily, on the other hand, for some at least, 

 it is a positive pleasure to turn from the civilized 

 to the savage, from the formal and fixed to the 

 unrestrained and circumstanced by chance only, 



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