IV 



NATUEE AND THE POETS 



T HAVE said on a former occasion that " the true 

 -*- poet knows more about Nature than the natu- 

 ralist, because he carries her open secrets in his 

 heart. Eckermann could instruct Goethe in orni- 

 thology, but could not Goethe instruct Eckermann 

 in the meaning and mystery of the bird ? '^ But 

 the poets sometimes rely too confidently upon their 

 supposed intuitive knowledge of nature, and grow 

 careless about the accuracy of the details of their 

 pictures. I am not aware that this was ever the 

 case with Goethe; I think it was not, for as a rule 

 the greater the poet, the more correct and truthful 

 will be his specifications. It is the lesser poets 

 who trip most upon their facts. Thus a New Eng- 

 land poet speaks of "plucking the apple from the 

 pine," as if the pineapple grew upon the pine-tree. 

 A Western poet sings of the bluebird in a strain in 

 which every feature and characteristic of the bird 

 is lost; not one trait of the bird is faithfully set 

 down. When the robin and the swallow come, he 

 says, the bluebird hies him to some mossy old 

 wood, where, amid the deep seclusion, he pours out 

 his song. 



