224 BIRDS AND POETS 



"Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me." 



One seems to see those huge Brocken shadows of 



the past sinking and dropping below the horizon 



like mountain peaks, as he presses onward on his 



journey. Akin to this absorption of science is 



another quality in my poet not found in the rest, 



except perhaps a mere hint of it now and then in 



Lucretius, — a quality easier felt than described. It 



is a tidal wave of emotion running all through the 



poems, which is now and then crested with such 



passages as this : — 



"I am he that walks with the tender and growing night; 

 I call to the earth and sea, half held by the night. 



"Press close, bare-bosom'd night! Press close, magnetic, nour- 

 ishing night! 

 Night of south winds ! night of the large, few stars ! 

 Still, nodding night! mad, naked, summer night. 



" Smile, O voluptuous, cool-breath'd earth ! 

 Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees ! 

 Earth of departed sunset ! Earth of the mountains, misty 



topt! 

 Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon, just tinged with 



blue! 

 Earth of shine and dark, mottling the tide of the river! 

 Earth of the limpid gray of clouds, brighter and clearer for my 



sake! 

 Far-swooping, elbow'd earth! rich, apple-blossom'd earth! 

 Smile, for your lover comes! " 



Professor Clifford calls it "cosmic emotion," — 

 a poetic thrill and rhapsody in contemplating the 

 earth as a whole, — its chemistry and vitality, its 

 bounty, its beauty, its power, and the applicability 

 of its laws and principles to human, aesthetic, and 

 art products. It affords the key to the theory of art 



