ON THE MANUSCRIPTS OF GOD 



Again, in Emerson's "Two Rivers" we 

 catch the fancy-loosing spell of water: 



"Thou, in thy narrow banks, art pent: 

 The stream I love unbounded goes 

 Through flood and sea and firmament; 



Through light, through life, it forward flows. 



"I see the inundation sweet, 



I hear the spending of the stream 

 Through years, through men, through Nature fleet, 

 Through love and thought, through power and 

 dream." 



Rossetti's "glance like water brimming 

 with the sky," and Shelley's lines, 



"Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood 

 Of harmony," 



are other illustrations which prove how much 

 more dependable water is than wine as a 

 second aid to inspiration. 



Even the twinkle of water as well as 

 some of its brackish bitterness has been 

 successfully reflected in a poem by Ben 

 Jonson : 



"And sunk in that Dead sea of life, 

 So deep, as he did then death's waters sup, 

 But that the cork of title buoyed him up." 



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