108 BY-WAYS AND BIRD-NOTES. 



In a bit of verse I once tried to express my 

 idea of the true poet : — 



" He is a poet strong and true 

 Who loves wild thyme and "honey-dew, 

 Who, like a brown bee, works and sings, 

 With morning freshness on his wings, 

 And a gold burden on his thighs, 

 The pollen-dust of centuries." 



This pollen-dust is to be found in the old 

 woods as well as in the old books. The 

 flowers of poesy are but impressionist sketches 

 of the flowers of Nature. The little bloom of 

 the partridge-berry has sweeter perfume than 

 any lyric of Theocritus or Horace. From the 

 proper point of view the big, vigorous flower 

 of the tulip-tree is as full of racy, unused sug- 

 gestions as it is of stamens. Virgil and Ten- 

 nyson, Theocritus and Emerson, Sappho and 

 Keats, have filled their songs with the most 

 delicately elusive elements of Nature caught 

 from out-door life. They are the half-dozen 

 poets of the world who have come near in 

 their work to the methods of the bee. The 

 honey-cell and the poem are of divine art — the 

 honey and the idea of the poem are of divine 

 nature. Rossetti and Poe builded lovely cells, 

 but they had no wild-flower honey with which 

 to fill them ; theirs was a marvellous nectar, 

 but it was gathered from books and art. " Vol- 

 umes of forgotten lore " served them, instead 

 of brooks, and fields, and woods, and birds, 

 and flowers. 



Now, literature is not the whole of life, 

 nor is the study of Nature the whole secret of 

 literary inspiration. But recreation of body 

 and mind is drawn from obscure and various 



