rld, to heal and refresh our
wearied spirits.

As in this poem the pleasure is caused by its appeals to the
imagination heightening the feeling the scene naturally excites; by
the spiritual and material world being linked together as regards the
music; and by the connection established between the echoes and the
sky, field, hill, and river, where they die--just so it is with the
poetry of moral feeling. The spectacle we have instanced of the young
mother watching her sleeping infant, is in itself beautiful; but it
becomes poetical when we imagine the feeling of beauty united in her
mind with the instinct of love, and detect in her glance, moist with
emotion, the blending of hopes, memories, pride, and tearful joy.
Poetry, therefore, is not moral feeling, but something that heightens
and adorns it. It is not even a direct moral agent, for it deepens the
lesson only through the medium of the feelings and imagination. Thus
moral poetry, when reduced to writing, is merely morality conveyed in
the form of poetry; and in like manner, religious poetry, is religion
so conveyed. The thing conveyed, however, must harmonise with the
medium, for poetry will not consent to give an enduring form to what
is false or pernicious. It has often been remarked, with a kind of
superstitious wonder, that poems of an immoral character never live
long; but the reason is, that it is the characteristic of immorality
to tie down man in the chains of the senses, and this shews that it
has nothing in common with the spiritual nature of poetry. For the
same reason, a poem based upon atheism, although it might attract
attention for a time, would meet with no permanent response in the
human breast; religion being Truth, and poetry her peculiar
ministrant.

Although written poetry, however, does not necessarily come into this
subject, it may be observed, that the comparative incapacity of the
present generation to enjoy the poetical is clearly exhibited in its
literature. Never was there so much verse, and so little poetry. Never
was the faculty of rhyming so impartially spread over the whole mass
of society. The difficulty used to be, to find one possessed of the
gift: now it is nearly as difficult to find one who is not. Formerly,
to write verses was a distinction: now it is a distinction not to
write them--and one of some consequence. But with all this multitude
of poets, there is not one who can take his place with the
comparatively great names o