244 THROUGH LIBRARY WINDOWS 



and always will be beautiful, for He made it. 

 The poet sees it and his thoughts flow rhythmic- 

 ally full of emotion and power. The poet gives 

 more than he took, but he took and what he 

 took was inspiration. 



We have poets to-day, readable, thoughtful, 

 enjoyable, but they make no impression, com- 

 mand no following, do not meet the felt de- 

 mand of soul. The real poet is a marvel. He 

 possesses those rare, subtle, indefinable qualities 

 that mere training and education cannot bestow, 

 qualities that often defy environment and yet 

 so pure and delicate and positive that it is easy 

 to understand the old Latin definition, "poeta 

 nascitur" — a heaven-born gift. 



Ruskin has furnished us a most happy 

 phrase, "feeling the power of life." In his 

 ideal, life is rhythmic, a poem set to music, 

 pitched to the key of the infinite, its grace notes 

 were the sublime, the beautiful, the good and 

 true. He ever saw 



"God's world bathed in Beauty, 

 God's world steeped in Light." 



How reverently he sets the voice of gale and 

 tongue of flower telling the power of God. He 

 makes us see the gorgeous curtains of the 



