SCIENCE AND THE POETS 71 



houseliold of man." To clothe science with flesh 

 and blood, to breathe into it the breath of life, is a 

 creative work which only the Poet can do. Several 

 of the yotmger poets, both in this country and in 

 England, have made essays in this direction, but 

 with indifferent success. It is still science when 

 they have done with it, and not poetry. The trans- 

 figuration of which Wordsworth speaks is not per- 

 fect. The inorganic has not clearly become the 

 organic. Charles DeKay has some good touches, 

 but still the rock is too near the surface. The 

 poetic covering of vegetable mould is too scanty. 

 More successful, but still rather too literal, are sev- 

 eral passages in Mr. Nichols's "Monte Eosa." A 

 passage beginning on page 9, 



" Of what was doing on earth 

 Ere man had come to see," 



is good science and pretty good poetry. 



" And that unlettered time slipped on, 

 Saw tropic climes invade the polar rings, 

 The polar cold lay waste the tropic marge ; 

 Saw monster beasts emerge in ooze and air, 

 And run their race and stow their bones in clay; 

 Saw the bright gold bedew the elder rocks, 

 And all the gems grow crystal in their caves ; 

 Saw plant wax quick, and stir to moving worm, 

 And worm move upward, reaching toward the brute ; 

 Saw brute by habit fit himself with brain, 

 And startle earth with wondrous progeny; 

 Saw all of these, and still saw no true man. 

 For man was not, or still so rarely was. 

 That as a little child his thoughts were weak, 

 Weak and forgetful and of nothing worth. 

 And Nature stormed along her changeful ways 

 Unheeded, undescribed, the while man slept 

 Infolded in his germ, or with fierce brutes, 



