EAGLES AND AKT. 245 



What then if he be thus light of heart, and should go forth 

 each day rejoicing? is not his heritage unutterably rich 

 and wondrous fair, that he may take delight therein ? And 

 what if in the overflowing of his joy his heart break forth in 

 singing by the way ? it was thus the Old-Time Poet who 

 was the Child- Artist did, and we can yet hear the cheerful 

 echoes of the songs he sung ! 



Yes, Poetry was the earliest expression of the yearnings 

 of Art, and 



" Those brave sublunary things the first poets had," 



were its young dreams, which strove in them for form and 

 for the light, and found it only in the word-painting of their 

 imperfect song. Thus the Poet's speech is that of the child- 

 hood of our race, while the Artist is the Poet grown, speak- 

 ing like a god the majestic language of creations ! Thus the 

 Poet was the first interpreter of Earth to her ruder children ; 

 and while he sang aloud to his brothers, you might hear the 

 Old Mother crooning a mysterious undertone to him. He 

 was the Prophet-child of Art, and in his unconsciousness, 

 standing beside that 



" mighty portal, 



Like a volcano's meteor-breathing cavern, 



Whence the oracular vapor is hurled up, 



Which lonely men drink wandering in their youth," 



he scattered abroad, in the wild utterance of that madness, 

 its most precious myths fragmented among the nations. The 

 Artist, in his maturer strength, grasped these shining hints, 

 that amidst the upheaving chaos of a Daedal thought glit- 

 tered like broken points, and when, with mighty energies, 

 he dragged them from the thick darkness forth, the world 

 .saw that mute white shapes of a Titanic grandeur towered 

 beneath his plastic hand. 



When thus, from the child-like, unregarded mutterings of 



