ter how coldly
The rough river ran,--
Over the brink of it!
Picture it--think of it,
Dissolute man!
Lave in it, drink of it,
Then, if you can.

"Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care;
Fashioned so slenderly,
Young, and so fair!"

No analysis of philosophy can make us acquainted with the tragedy of
this life as the poet can; no exhortation of preacher can so effectively
arouse in us the spirit of a Christian charity for the despairing
wanderer as the poet.

Would you know the tragedy of a careless and supercilious coquetry which
plays with the heart as the fisherman plays with the salmon? Read "Clara
Vere de Vere." Would you know the dull heartache of a loveless married
life, growing at times into an intolerable anguish which no marital
fidelity can do much to medicate? Read "Auld Robin Gray." Who but a poet
can interpret the pain of a parting between loving hearts, with its
remorseful recollections of the wholly innocent love's joys that are
past?

"Had we never loved sae kindly,
Had we never loved sae blindly,
Never met--or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken hearted."

Who but a poet can depict the perils of an unconscious drifting apart,
such as has destroyed many a friendship and wrecked many a married life,
as Clough has depicted it in "Qua Cursum Ventus"? If you would know the
life-long sorrow of the blind man at your side, would enter into his
life and for a brief moment share his captivity, read Milton's
interpretation of that sorrow in Samson's Lament. If you would find some
message to cheer the blind man in his darkness and illumine his
captivity, read the same poet's ode on his own blindness:

"God doth not need
Either man's work, or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait."

No prison statistics, no police reports, no reformer's documents, no
public discussions of the question, What to do with the tramp, will ever
so make the student of life participant of the innermost experience of
the tramp, his experience of dull despair, his loss of his grip on life,
as Beranger's "The Old Vagabond." No expert in nervous diseases, no
psychological student of mental states, normal and abnormal, can give
the reader