NATURE AND THE POETS 



It takes a sure eye, too, to see 



"The landscape winking thro' the heat" 

 or to gather this image : 



"He has a solid base of temperament; 

 But as the water-lily starts and slides 

 Upon the level in little puffs of wind, 

 Though anchor 'd to the bottom, such is he;*' 



or this : 



"'Arms on which the standing muscle sloped, 

 As slopes a wild brook o'er a little stone, 

 Running too vehemently to break upon it," 



and many other gems that abound in his poems. 

 He does not cut and cover in a single line, so far 

 as I have observed. Great caution and exact know- 

 ledge underlie his most rapid and daring flights. 

 A lady told me that she was once walking with 

 him in the fields, when they came to a spring that 

 bubbled up through shifting sands in a very pretty 

 manner, and Tennyson, in order to see exactly how 

 the spring behaved, got down on his hands and 

 knees and peered a long time into the water. The 

 incident is worth repeating as showing how intently 

 a great poet studies nature. 



Walt Whitman says he has been trying for years 

 to find a word that would express or suggest that 

 evening call of the robin. How absorbingly this 

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