NATURE AND THE POETS 111 



been put into poetry. Nothing could be happier 



than this rendering of it by a nameless singer in 



"A Masque of Poets: " — 



" When the willows gleam along the brooks, 

 And the grass grows green in sunny nooks. 

 In the sunshine and the rain 

 I hear the robin in the lane 

 Singing, * Cheerily, 

 Cheer up, cheer up; 

 Cheerily, cheerily, 

 Cheer up.' 



" But the snow is still 

 Along the walls and on the hill. 

 The days are cold, the nights forlorn^ 

 For one is here and one is gone. 

 ' Tut, tut. Cheerily, 

 Cheer up, cheer up ; 

 Cheerily, cheerily. 

 Cheer up.' 



" When spring hopes seem to wane, 

 I hear the joyful strain — 

 A song at night, a song at mom, 

 A lesson deep to me is borne. 

 Hearing, * Cheerilj'-, 

 Cheer up, cheer up; 

 Cheerily, cheerily. 

 Cheer up.' " 



The poetic interpretation of nature, which has 

 come to be a convenient phrase, and about which 

 the Oxford professor of poetry has written a book, 

 is, of course, a myth, or is to be read the other 

 way. It is the soul the poet interprets, not nature. 

 There is nothing in nature but what the beholder 

 supplies. Does the sculptor interpret the marble 

 or his own ideal ? Is the music in the instrument, 

 or in the soul of the performer? Nature is a dead 



