t is
not his; that it is as strange and beautiful to him as to you; he would
fain hear the like eloquence at length. Once having tasted this immortal
ichor, he cannot have enough of it, and as an admirable creative power
exists in these intellections, it is of the last importance that these
things get spoken. What a little of all we know is said! What drops of
all the sea of our science are baled up! and by what accident it is
that these are exposed, when so many secrets sleep in nature! Hence the
necessity of speech and song; hence these throbs and heart-beatings in
the orator, at the door of the assembly, to the end namely that thought
may be ejaculated as Logos, or Word.

Doubt not, O poet, but persist. Say 'It is in me, and shall out.' Stand
there, balked and dumb, stuttering and stammering, hissed and hooted,
stand and strive, until at last rage draw out of thee that dream-power
which every night shows thee is thine own; a power transcending all
limit and privacy, and by virtue of which a man is the conductor of
the whole river of electricity. Nothing walks, or creeps, or grows, or
exists, which must not in turn arise and walk before him as exponent
of his meaning. Comes he to that power, his genius is no longer
exhaustible. All the creatures by pairs and by tribes pour into his mind
as into a Noah's ark, to come forth again to people a new world. This is
like the stock of air for our respiration or for the combustion of
our fireplace; not a measure of gallons, but the entire atmosphere if
wanted. And therefore the rich poets, as Homer, Chaucer, Shakspeare, and
Raphael, have obviously no limits to their works except the limits of
their lifetime, and resemble a mirror carried through the street, ready
to render an image of every created thing.

O poet! a new nobility is conferred in groves and pastures, and not in
castles or by the sword-blade any longer. The conditions are hard, but
equal. Thou shalt leave the world, and know the muse only. Thou shalt
not know any longer the times, customs, graces, politics, or opinions of
men, but shalt take all from the muse. For the time of towns is tolled
from the world by funereal chimes, but in nature the universal hours are
counted by succeeding tribes of animals and plants, and by growth of joy
on joy. God wills also that thou abdicate a manifold and duplex life,
and that thou be content that others speak for thee. Others shall be thy
gentlemen and shall represent all cour