158 LITEEAEY VALUES 



and unpoetical objects, and in one respect they are 

 not quite wrong ; yet at bottom no real object is 

 unpoetical, if the poet knows how to use it pro- 

 perly," — if he can throw enough feeling into it. 

 I lately read a poem by one of our younger poets on 

 an entirely modern theme, the building of the rail- 

 road, — the gang of men cutting through hills, tun- 

 neling mountains, filling valleys, bridging chasms, 

 etc. But, though vividly described, it did not quite 

 reach the poetical ; it lacked the personal and the 

 human ; it was realistic without the freeing touch 

 of the idealistic. Some story, some interest, some 

 enthusiasm overarching it, would have supplied an 

 atmosphere that was lacking. We cannot be perma- 

 nently interested in the gigantic or in sheer brute 

 power unless they are in some way related to life 

 and its aspirations. The battle of man with man is 

 more interesting than the battle of man with rocks 

 and chasms, because men can strike back, and vic- 

 tory is not to be had on such easy terms. 



The same objection cannot be urged against Mr. 

 William Vaughn Moody's poem on the steam en- 

 gine, which he treats under the figure of " The 

 Brute," — a poem of great imaginative power in 

 which the human interest is constantly paramount. 

 The still small voice of humanity is always heard 

 through the Brute's roar, as may be seen in the first 

 stanza : — 



" Through his might men work their wills; 

 They have boweled out the hills 

 For food to keep Mm toiling in the cages they have wrought ; 



