r to produce imaginative
pleasure. Inquiring of a gardener, for instance, what flower it is we
see yonder, he answers, 'a lily'. This is matter of fact. The botanist
pronounces it to be of the order of 'Hexandria Monogynia'. This is
matter of science. It is the 'lady' of the garden, says Spenser; and
here we begin to have a poetical sense of its fairness and grace. It
is

The plant and flower of _light_,

says Ben Jonson; and poetry then shows us the beauty of the flower in
all its mystery and splendour.

If it be asked, how we know perceptions like these to be true, the
answer is, by the fact of their existence--by the consent and delight
of poetic readers. And as feeling is the earliest teacher, and
perception the only final proof, of things the most demonstrable by
science, so the remotest imaginations of the poets may often be found
to have the closest connexion with matter of fact; perhaps might
always be so, if the subtlety of our perceptions were a match for the
causes of them. Consider this image of Ben Jonson's--of a lily being
the flower of light. Light, undecomposed, is white; and as the lily is
white, and light is white, and whiteness itself is nothing _but_
light, the two things, so far, are not merely similar, but identical.
A poet might add, by an analogy drawn from the connexion of light and
colour, that there is a 'golden dawn' issuing out of the white lily,
in the rich yellow of the stamens. I have no desire to push this
similarity farther than it may be worth. Enough has been stated to
show that, in poetical as in other analogies, 'the same feet of
Nature', as Bacon says, may be seen 'treading in different paths'; and
that the most scornful, that is to say, dullest disciple of fact,
should be cautious how he betrays the shallowness of his philosophy by
discerning no poetry in its depths.

But the poet is far from dealing only with these subtle and analogical
truths. Truth of every kind belongs to him, provided it can bud into
any kind of beauty, or is capable of being illustrated and impressed
by the poetic faculty. Nay, the simplest truth is often so beautiful
and impressive of itself, that one of the greatest proofs of his
genius consists in his leaving it to stand alone, illustrated by
nothing but the light of its own tears or smiles, its own wonder,
might, or playfulness. Hence the complete effect of many a simple
passage in our old English ballads and romances, and of the passionate
sin