nto the
universe. It describes the flowing, not the fixed. It does not define the
limits of sense, or analyze the distinctions of the understanding, but
signifies the excess of the imagination beyond the actual or ordinary
impression of any object or feeling. The poetical impression of any object
is that uneasy, exquisite sense of beauty or power that cannot be
contained within itself; that is impatient of all limit; that (as flame
bends to flame) strives to link itself to some other image of kindred
beauty or grandeur; to enshrine itself, as it were, in the highest forms
of fancy, and to relieve the aching sense of pleasure by expressing it in
the boldest manner, and by the most striking examples of the same quality
in other instances. Poetry, according to Lord Bacon, for this reason "has
something divine in it, because it raises the mind and hurries it into
sublimity, by conforming the shows of things to the desires of the soul,
instead of subjecting the soul to external things, as reason and history
do." It is strictly the language of the imagination; and the imagination
is that faculty which represents objects, not as they are in themselves,
but as they are moulded by other thoughts and feelings, into an infinite
variety of shapes and combinations of power. This language is not the less
true to nature, because it is false in point of fact; but so much the more
true and natural, if it conveys the impression which the object under the
influence of passion makes on the mind. Let an object, for instance, be
presented to the senses in a state of agitation or fear--and the
imagination will distort or magnify the object, and convert it into the
likeness of whatever is most proper to encourage the fear. "Our eyes are
made the fools" of our other faculties. This is the universal law of the
imagination,

"That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy:
Or in the night imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush suppos'd a bear!"

When Iachimo says of Imogen,

"The flame o' th' taper
Bows toward her, and would under-peep her lids
To see the enclosed lights"--

this passionate interpretation of the motion of the flame to accord with
the speaker's own feelings, is true poetry. The lover, equally with the
poet, speaks of the auburn tresses of his mistress as locks of shining
gold, because the least tinge of yellow in the hair has, from novelty and
a sense of persona