BIRDS AND POETS, 149 



For thou wert not ; but power from worst producing worst 

 The spirit of the beasts was kindled there, 

 And of the birds and of the watery forms." 



That " thou " was Adam, and, in reverence, it seems to us 

 that the only way left of righting that apparently shadow- 

 peopled " island" to the apprehension of those Higher Intel- 

 ligences was through the interpenetration of the idiosyn- 

 cratic life of some one of the " Principalities and Powers" 

 into its lower essence in a word, by the marriage of the 

 Angelic, or Spiritual, and Sensuous life. 



That such a marriage was symboled by the breathing into 

 the nostrils of Adam the breath of life, we have no question. 



Into his organization the most subtle and perfect express- 

 ion of the creative energy of earth a higher energy had 

 passed, and in this sublimest marriage was the act and pur- 

 pose of creation consummate. 



To the universe, when he awoke in birth u the great globe 

 itself," with all " the pomp and circumstance" of its peculiar 

 being, stood first revealed beneath the pillared firmament as 

 now it stands 



" Man, the imperial shape, then multiplied 

 His generations under the Pavilion 

 Of the sun's throne." 



His organization became to this vast new entity the law of 

 beauty of perfect form harmonizing it with the Universe ; 

 his point of vision in common with the Seraphim, disclosing 

 not the only but near to them in the linked Spiritual gra- 

 dation the highest reality. 



He first saw beauty here, and heard the choir of morning 

 birds, but he as well, first looked upward into heaven to hear 

 the singing of the morning stars. 



He, alone, could look beyond mere consciousness, and see 

 things, not as they appear to animal sense, but nearly as they 

 exist, absolutely, to all intelligences. 



