we breathe on the glass-pane; and it shone at the sword's
point, so that the thin threads of the cobweb seemed to swell to
cables, for one saw the strong twistings of numberless small threads.
And the voice of Knowledge seemed over the whole world, so that the
age of miracles appeared to have returned. Thin iron ties were laid
over the earth, and along these the heavily-laden waggons flew on the
wings of steam, with the swallow's flight; mountains were compelled to
open themselves to the inquiring spirit of the age; the plains were
obliged to raise themselves; and then thought was borne in words,
through metal wires, with the lightning's speed, to distant towns.
"Life! life!" it sounded through the whole of nature. "It is our time!
Poet, thou dost possess it! Sing of it in spirit and in truth!"

And the genius of Knowledge raised the shining sword; he raised it far
out into space, and then--what a sight! It was as when the sunbeams
shine through a crevice in the wall in a dark space, and appear to us
a revolving column of myriads of grains of dust; but every grain of
dust here was a world! The sight he saw was our starry firmament!

Thy earth is a grain of dust here, but a speck whose wonders astonish
thee; only a grain of dust, and yet a star under stars. That long
column of worlds thou callest thy starry firmament, revolves like the
myriads of grains of dust, visibly hovering in the sunbeam's revolving
column, from the crevice in the wall into that dark space. But still
more distant stands the milky way's whitish mist, a new starry heaven,
each column but a radius in the wheel! But how great is this itself!
how many radii thus go out from the central point--God!

So far does thine eye reach, so clear is thine age's horizon! Son of
time, choose, who shall be thy companion? Here is thy new career! with
the greatest of thy time, fly thou before thy time's generation! Like
twinkling Lucifer, shine thou in time's roseate morn.

* * * * *

Yes, in knowledge lies Poetry's California! Every one who only looks
backward, and not clearly forward, will, however high and honourably
he stands, say, that if such riches lie in knowledge, they would long
since have been made available by great and immortal bards, who had a
clear and sagacious eye for the discovery of truth. But let us
remember that when Thespis spoke from his car, the world had also wise
men. Homer had sung his immortal songs, and y