NATURE AND THE POETS 



That light that never was on sea or land is what 

 the poet gives us, and is what we mean by the poetic 

 interpretation of nature. The Oxford professor 

 struggles against this view. "It is not true," he 

 says, "that nature is a blank, or an unintelligible 

 scroll with no meaning of its own but that which 

 we put into it from the light of our own transient 

 feelings." Not a blank, certainly, to the scientist, 

 but full of definite meanings and laws, and a store- 

 house of powers and economies ; but to the poet the 

 meaning is what he pleases to make it, what it pro- 

 vokes in his own soul. To the man of science it 

 is thus and so, and not otherwise; but the poet 

 touches and goes, and uses nature as a garment 

 which he puts off and on. Hence the scientific 

 reading or interpretation of nature is the only real 

 one. Says the Soothsayer in "Antony and Cleo- 

 patra:" 



'In Nature's infinite book of secrecy a little do I 

 read." 



This is science bowed and reverent, and speaking 

 through a great poet. The poet himself does not 

 so much read in nature's book though he does 

 this, too as write his own thoughts there. Na- 

 ture reads him, she is the page and he the type, and 

 she takes the impression he gives. Of course the 

 poet uses the truths of nature also, and he estab- 

 lishes his right to them by bringing them home to 

 125 



