requires
the comprehensive vision of the poet to catch the light of existing
scenes as they shift along the globe, and harmonize them with the
instant;--whether he view

"The Indian
Drifting, knife in hand,
His frail boat moored to
A floating isle thick matted
With large-leaved, low-creeping melon-plants,
And the dark cucumber.
He reaps and stows them,
Drifting,--drifting. Round him,
Round his green harvest-plot,
Flow the cool lake waves:
The mountains ring them";--

or whether, far across the continent, he chance to see

"The ferry
On the broad, clay-laden
Lone Chorasmian stream: thereon,
With snort and strain,
Two horses, strongly swimming, tow
The ferry-boat, with woven ropes
To either bow
Firm harnessed by the mane:--a chief
With shout and shaken spear
Stands at the prow, and guides them; but astern,
The cowering merchants, in long robes,
Sit pale beside their wealth
Of silk-bales and of balsam-drops,
Of gold and ivory,
Of turquoise-earth and amethyst,
Jasper and chalcedony,
And milk-barred onyx-stones.
The loaded boat swings groaning
In the yellow eddies.
The gods behold them,"--

the gods and the poets. But, except to these blest beholders, the
inhabitants of the dead centuries are mere spectral shades; for it takes
a poet's fancy to vitalize with warmth and breath again those things
that, having apparently left no impress on their own generation, seem to
have no more signification for this than the persons of the drama or the
heroes of romance.

Yet, in a far inferior way, every man is a poet to himself. In the
microcosm of his own small round, every one has the power to vivify old
incident, every one raises bawbles of the desk and drawer, not only into
life, but into life they never had. With the flower whose leaves are
shed about the box, we can bring back the brilliant morning of its
blossoming, desire and hope and joyous youth once more; with the letter
laid away beside it rises the dear hand that rested on the sheet, and
moved along the leaf with every line it penned: each trinket has its
pretty past, pleasant or painful to recall as it may be. There is no
trifle, however vulgar, but, looking at its previous page, it ha