220 BIEDS AND POETS 



the terms of the equation, but that the unknown 



quantity is the same as ever. The earth now rests 



upon the sun, — in his outstretched palm ; the sun 



rests upon some other sun, and that upon some 



other; but what they all finally rest upon, who can 



tell? Well may Tennyson speak of the "fairy tales 



of science," and well may Walt Whitman say: — 



" I lie abstracted, and hear beautiful tales of things, and the rea- 

 sons of things; 

 They are so beautiful, I nudge myself to listen." 



But, making all due acknowledgments to science, 

 there is one danger attending it that the poet can 

 alone save us from, — the danger that science, ab- 

 sorbed with its great problems, wiU forget Man. 

 Hence the especial office of the poet with reference 

 to science is to endow it with a human interest. 

 The heart has been disenchanted by having disclosed 

 to it blind, abstract forces where it had enthroned 

 personal humanistic divinities. In the old time, 

 man was the centre of the system; everything was 

 interested in him, and took sides for or against him. 

 There were nothing but men and gods in the uni- 

 verse. But in the results of science the world is 

 more and more, and man is less and less. The poet 

 must come to the rescue, and place man again at the 

 top, magnify him, exalt him, reinforce him, and 

 match these wonders from without with equal won- 

 ders from within. Welcome to the bard who is not 

 appalled by the task, and who can readily assimilate 

 and turn into human emotions these vast deductions 

 of the savants ! The minor poets do nothing in this 



