NATURE IN THE NATURE POETS. 
49 
I confess also to a liking for Beattie and his "Minstrel." 
His " Hermit " also is very beautiful. I venture to quote 
the concluding lines : 
"And darkness and doubt are now flying away, 
No longer I roam in conjecture forlorn ; 
So breaks on the traveller, faint and astray, 
The bright and the balmy effulgence of morn. 
See truth, love, and mercy in triumph descending. 
And nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom, 
On the pale cheek of death smiles and roses are blending. 
And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb." 
We may well ask ourselves whether the young poet of the 
'^Minstrel" may not have suggested somewhat to the young 
poet of the Prelude or to the Wanderer " of the Ex- 
cursion. 
But with these words it is time to ring in the concluding 
act of my little presentation. There is nothing now to wait 
for. We are ready for the outburst of the full glory of our 
nature poets. The curtain falls for a moment only, and rises 
on William Cowper and William Wordsworth. 
Now we must not, in speaking of nature poetry, expect 
the bard to take us in order round the circle of the sciences. 
There is no regular zodiac of song. And yet, while the 
poet's eye glances from heaven to earth, from earth to 
heaven, it will rest in its own time and way on most of the 
various fields that the man of science calls his own. 
We will not, for example, expect from Wordsworth or 
Cowper geographical or geological principles, the distribution 
of land and water, or the classification and dissection of 
plants and flowers. In fact they sometimes speak, although 
I believe their hearts were both sound on the importance and 
the glory of true knowledge, as if science were opposed to 
poetic feeling. One speaks in rejproach of 
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