OUT OF DOORS WITH NATUKE. 325 



the cities to his morning meal, and takes a nation for " mine 

 inn " by the way, from zone to zone ! Say then, the Ameri- 

 can is not also the truest poet ! 



Is the bird upon its tireless pinions " putting a belt around 

 the world," a beautiful and glorious creature' the most 

 poetical of images ? Why not then the man, who, in his 

 car of power, sits calmly to be borne as by his own will, to 

 the uttermost parts of the earth a far more sublime embodi- 

 ment of all that 



" Bottomless conceit " 



has shaped to poetry. 



Does the swallow breast the opposing winds, and cleave in 

 undeviating flight the track of storms ? the Yankee, in his 

 steamship, follows on his subject waves ! 



Does the swallow glide across trackless wastes above the 

 sea-like crests of mighty forests rise like a loosened arrow 

 amidst the snows of mountains, and dive the abyss of val- 

 veys? the Yankee on his railroad thunders after it in 

 clouds and fire hurtling over plains, cleaving startled 

 woods, to plunge reverberating through the yawning tunnel, 

 and burst forth winding on the paths of cities ! 



Does the swallow lead the south wind's flight, and find its 

 summer in a day ? the Yankee can pass it on the way, can 

 speak across a continent, bid a home arise before he starts, 

 and offer the swallow lodgings in his chimney-flue, at that, 

 when it arrives. 



There is no mistake about it this same Yankee is the 

 highest poet of the most poetical age the world ever saw, 

 though it is perfectly well known that he has scarcely a vol- 

 ume of respectable poetry so called to bless himself with- 

 all! 



His poetry is a live substantiality a creation an entity 

 of being and of action of being, real as the firm-based 

 earth of action grander than Homeric dreams. The " metre 

 ballad-monger" is no longer the poet of mankind the 



