The World of the Poets. 
[December, 
746 
part, so ready to improve upon this supposed perfection, and 
tluis to paint the lily and gild the refined gold. In all these 
imaginings, whether they refer to a golden age in the distant 
past, or to a “ good time coming ” in some far-off futurity, — 
whether they are idealisations of this earth of ours, or 
dreams of some other and better world, — there is a singular 
sameness. The poets of the past and of the present, while 
feeling that much around them does not answer to man’s 
wishes, seem yet to have formed but very crude notions as 
to where the mischief lies. Their amendments on reality 
are impracticable and inconsistent, and could they he carried 
into effect would often prove true calamities. 
Among the natural phenomena complained of by the 
tuneful and irritable race is the night : — 
“ Fair wert thou with the light 
O’er thy blue hills and sleeping waters cast 
From purple skies ne’er deepening into night.” 
wrote an English poetess in an ode to Elysium, and the 
same idea in substance recurs in many other “ lays and 
prose imaginings.” We may well ask, at the outset, 
whether, in point of mere beauty, the loss of sunrise, of 
sunset, and of moonlight would be any great gain to the 
world ? Surely many effects, priceless to the poet and the 
artist, and indeed to the aesthetic sense of all of us, would 
thus be rendered unknown, and even inconceivable ! 
But more, without a complete modification of constitution, 
the nature and extent of which we cannot imagine, neither 
man nor beast would be benefited, or could fail to be injured 
by one unbroken exposure to the light of day. 
Nor must we forget the part which the stars and the moon 
have played in the intellectual training of our race. Had 
we lived in constant daylight, knowing no heavenly body 
save the sun, not merely the science of astronomy would 
have been wanting, but the development of mechanics and 
physics would have been gravely affected. The theory of 
universal gravitation would scarcely have been established ; 
the speed of light would not have been measured, or, rather, 
the fact that it has a rate of motion would probably have 
escaped us. Our conceptions of time would be very vague, 
deprived as we should have been of the very notions of the 
day and the month. 
How perpetual daylight was to be obtained we are not 
informed. In a world revolving on its axis in presence of a 
sole source of light, day and night must necessarily alternate. 
In systems lighted up by twin-suns the nights might be 
