THE ART-PRINCIPLE IN POETRY 189 



and irreverent. But its advocates are neither few 



nor inconsiderable ; it is supported by the greatest 



names. We can cite for it, among many, the voice 



of Emerson, who in his poem called TJie Problem 



states it with impressive splendour: — 



Earth proudly wears the Parthenon 

 As the best gem upon her zone ; 

 And Morning opes with haste her lids 

 To gaze upon the Pyramids ; 

 O'er England's abbeys bends the sky 

 As on its friends, with kindred eye ; 

 For out of Thought's interior sphere, 

 These wonders rose to upper air ; 

 And Nature gladly gave tlicin place, 

 Adopted them into her race, 

 And granted them an equal date 

 With Andes and with Ararat. 



Shakespeare, too, — the same truth, of the blend- 

 ing of the real and the ideal in a new actual, in a 

 more veritable identity, at once more ideal and more 

 real, is the burden of those forever quoted, yet for- 

 ever fresh lines of his, — 



The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, 



Doth glance y)'^;;/ heaven to earth, fro7n earth to heaven ; ^ 



And as imagination bodies forth 



The forms of things unknown, the p)oeIs pen 



Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing 



A local habitation and a tiame. 



Emerson again, in one of the most perfect of 

 lyric poems. To the RJiodora, has joined with a 



1 That is, from the ideal to the real, from the real to the ideal. 



