EAGLES AND ART. 
245 
What tlien if he be thus light of heart, and should go forth 
each day rojoicing? — is not his heritage unutterably rich 
and wondrous fair, that he may take delight therein ? And 
what if in the overflowing of his joy his heart break forth in 
singing by the way ? — ^it was thus the Old-Time Poet — who 
was the Child- Artist — did, and we can yet hear the cheerful 
echoes of the songs-he sung ! 
Yes, Poetry was the earliest expression of the yearnings 
of Art, and 
" Those brave sublunary things the first poets had," 
were its young dreams, which strove in them for form and 
for the light, and found it only in the word-painting of their 
imperfect song. Thus the Poet's speech is that of the child- 
hood of our race, while the Artist is the Poet grown, speak- 
ing like a god the majestic language of creations ! Thus the 
Poet was the first interpreter of Earth to her ruder children ; 
and while he sang aloud to his brothers, you might hear the 
Old Mother crooning a mysterious undertone to him. He 
was the Prophet-child of Art, and in his unconsciousness, 
standing beside that 
" mighty portal, 
Like a volcano's meteor-breathing cavern, 
Whence tlie oracular vapor is hurled up, 
Which lonely men drink wandering in their youth," 
he scattered abroad, in the wild utterance of that madness, 
its most precious myths fragmented among the nations. The 
Artist, in his maturer strength, grasped these shining hints, 
that amidst the upheaving chaos of a Daedal thought glit- 
tered like broken points, and when, with mighty energies, 
he dragged them from the thick darkness forth, the world 
saw that mute white shapes of a Titanic grandeur towered 
beneath his plastic hand. 
When thus, from the child-like, unregarded mutterings of 
