es is gold:
And I shall weigh the same,
Give life its praise or blame:
Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old."[B]

[Footnote B: _Rabbi Ben Ezra_.]

As youth attains its meaning in age, so does the unconscious process of
nature come to its meaning in man And old age,

"Still within this life
Though lifted o'er its strife,"

is able to

"Discern, compare, pronounce at last,
This rage was right i' the main,
That acquiescence vain";[C]

[Footnote C: _Ibid_.]

so man is able to penetrate beneath the apparently chaotic play of
phenomena, and find in them law, and beauty, and goodness. The laws
which he finds by thought are not his inventions, but his discoveries.
The harmonies are in the organ, if the artist only knows how to elicit
them. Nay, the connection is still more intimate. It is in the thought
of man that silent nature finds its voice; it blooms into "meaning,"
significance, thought, in him, as the plant shows its beauty in the
flower. Nature is making towards humanity, and in humanity it finds
_itself_.

"Striving to be man, the worm
Mounts through all the spires of form."[A]

[Footnote A: _Emerson_.]

The geologist, physicist, chemist, by discovering the laws of nature, do
not bind unconnected phenomena; but they refute the hasty conclusion of
sensuous thought, that the phenomena ever were unconnected. Men of
science do not introduce order into chance and chaos, but show that
there never was chance or chaos. The poet does not make the world
beautiful, but finds the beauty that is dwelling there. Without him,
indeed, the beauty would not be, any more than the life of the tree is
beautiful until it has evolved its potencies into the outward form.
Nevertheless, he is the expression of what was before, and the beauty
was there in potency, awaiting its expression. "Only let his thoughts be
of equal scope, and the frame will suit the picture," said Emerson.

"The winds
Are henceforth voices, wailing or a shout,
A querulous mutter, or a quick gay laugh,
Never a senseless gust now man is born.
The herded pines commune and have deep thoughts,
A secret they assemble to discuss
When the sun drops behind their trunks.

* * * * *

"The morn has enterprise, deep quiet droops
With evening, triumph takes the sunset hour,
Voluptuous transport ripens with the corn
Beneath a warm moon like a happy face."[A]

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