and finer
spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is in
the countenance of all science. Emphatically may be said of the poet,
as Shakespeare hath said of man, "that he looks before and after." He
is the rock of defense of human nature, an upholder and preserver,
carrying everywhere with him relationship and love. In spite of
difference of soil and climate, of language and manners, of laws and
customs, in spite of things silently gone out of mind, and things
violently destroyed, the poet binds together by passion and knowledge
the vast empire of human society, as it is spread over the whole earth
and over all time. The objects of the poet's thoughts are everywhere;
tho the eyes and senses of man are, it is true, his favorite guides,
yet he will follow wheresoever he can find an atmosphere of sensation
in which to move his wings. Poetry is the first and last of all
knowledge--it is as immortal as the heart of man.

If the labors of men of science should ever create any material
revolution, direct or indirect, in our condition, and in the
impressions which we habitually receive, the poet will sleep then no
more than at present, but he will be ready to follow the steps of the
man of science, not only in those general indirect effects, but he
will be at his side, carrying sensation into the midst of the science
itself. The remotest discoveries of the chemist, the botanist, or
mineralogist will be as proper objects of the poet's art as any upon
which it can be employed, if the time should ever come when these
things shall be familiar to us, and the relations under which they are
contemplated by the followers of these respective sciences shall be
manifestly and palpably material to us as enjoying and suffering
beings. If the time should ever come when what is now called science,
thus familiarized to men, shall be ready to put on, as it were, a form
of flesh and blood, the poet will lend his divine spirit to aid the
transfiguration, and will welcome the being thus produced as a dear
and genuine inmate of the household of man. It is not, then, to be
supposed that any one, who holds that sublime notion of poetry which I
have attempted to convey, will break in upon the sanctity and truth of
his pictures by transitory and accidental ornaments, and endeavor to
excite admiration of himself by arts, the necessity of which must
manifestly depend upon the assumed meanness of his subject.

FOOTNOTES:

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