204 LITERAEY VALUES 



Nature of Wordsworth, which has given the pre- 

 vailing tone and cast to most modern poetry. Thus, 

 from a goddess Nature has changed to a rustic 

 nymph, a cloistered nun, a heroine of romance, be- 

 sides other characters not so definite, till she has at 

 last become a priestess of the soul. What will be 

 the next phase is perhaps already indicated in the 

 poems of Walt Whitman, in which Nature is re- 

 garded mainly in the light of science, through the 

 immense vistas opened up by astronomy and geology. 

 This poet sees the earth as one of the orbs, and has 

 sought to adjust his imagination to the modern pro- 

 blems and conditions, always taking care, however, 

 to preserve an outlook into the highest regions. 



I was much struck with a passage in Whitman's 

 last volume, "Two Eivulets," in which he says 

 that he has not been afraid of the charge of obscurity 

 in his poems, "because human thought, poetry or 

 melody, must have dim escapes and outlets, — must 

 possess a certain fluid, aerial character, akin to space 

 itself, obscure to those of little or no imagination, 

 but indispensable to the highest purposes. Poetic 

 style, when addressed to the soul, is less definite 

 form, outline, sculpture, and becomes vista music, 

 half-tints, and even less than half-tints." I know 

 no ampler justification of a certain elusive quality 

 there is in the highest poetry — something that re- 

 fuses to be tabulated or explained, and that is a 

 stumbling-block to many readers — than is contained 

 in these sentences. 



