NA TURE-POETR V. 
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But along with these poets there has arisen a class whose 
imagination seeks to paint the features of Nature in all her 
beauty, using human story, if at all, as an artistic reason for 
objective representation alone. They seek to give pictures of 
Nature painted for her own sake only, to depict her charms and 
dwell on her loveliness, and to show clearly that to them she is 
so entrancing as to demand all their powers of description and 
invite all their faculties in her culture. As the motto of the 
other poets has been that “the proper study of mankind is man,” 
theirs seems to be the invocation that was addressed to Nature 
by one of the first of these Nature-poets. 
“ O Nature, all sufficient ! over all ! 
Enrich me with the knowledge of thy works.” 
Sometimes they burst forth into a kind of ecstasy, and pro- 
duce a rapturous hymn to the glory of Nature rather than a 
picture of her features: and this has by some writers been said to 
be the development of the primaeval religion of the .-Vryan race, 
though it may, perhaps, be more properly described as the 
individual expression of certain raptured souls. A specimen of 
this kind of poetry may be seen in the following v'erses by Brown- 
ing, who here displays, through the mouth of his Paracelsus, a 
truly superb union of the scientific and the poetic visions, in the 
conception of the rapture of life: — 
“ The centre-fire heaves underneath the earth. 
And the earth changes like a human face ; 
The molten ore bursts up among the rocks, 
Winds into the stone’s heart, outbranches bright 
In hidden mines, spots barren river-beds. 
Crumbles into fine sand where sunbeams bask — 
God joys therein. The wroth sea’s waves are edged 
With foam, white as the bitten lip of hate. 
When in the solitary waste, strange groups 
Of young volcanoes come up, cyclops-like. 
Staring together with their eyes on flame — 
God tastes a pleasure in their uncouth pride. 
Then all is still ; earth is a wintry clod : 
But spring-wind, like a dancing psaltress, passes 
Over its breast to waken it, rare verdure 
Buds tenderly upon rough banks, between 
The withered tree-roots and the cracks of frost. 
Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face ; 
The grass grows bright, the boughs are swollen with blooms 
Like chrysalids impatient for the air. 
The shining dorrs are busy, beetles run 
Along the furrows, ants make their ado ; 
Above, birds fly in merry flocks, the lark 
Soars up and up, shivering from very joy ; 
Afar the ocean sleeps ; white fishing-gulls 
Flit where the strand is purple with its tribe 
Of nested limpets ; savage creatures seek 
Their loves in woods and plains, — and God renews 
His ancient rapture.” 
Of this poetry there was nothing among the Greeks ; the type 
is mainly modern and, some think, a little mystical. To Shelley 
