ite only a
very brief specimen. I call him, and _think_ him, the noblest of
poets, _not_ because the impressions he produces are, at _all_ times,
the most profound, _not_ because the poetical excitement which he
induces is, at _all_ times, the most intense, but because it _is_, at
all times, the most ethereal--in other words, the most elevating and
the most pure. No poet is so little of the earth, earthy. What I am
about to read is from his last long poem, "The Princess":--

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail
That brings our friends up from the underworld;
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

Thus, although in a very cursory and imperfect manner, I have
endeavored to convey to you my conception of the Poetic Principle. It
has been my purpose to suggest that, while this Principle itself is,
strictly and simply, the Human Aspiration for Supernal Beauty, the
manifestation of the Principle is always found in _an elevating
excitement of the Soul_, quite independent of that passion which is the
intoxication of the Heart, or of that Truth which is the satisfaction
of the Reason. For, in regard to Passion, alas! its tendency is to
degrade rather than elevate the Soul. Love, on the contrary--Love, the
true, the divine Eros, the Uranian as distinguished from the Dionaean
Venus--is unquestionably the purest and truest of all poetical themes.
And in regard to Truth--if, to be sure, through the attainment of a
truth we are led to perceive a harmony where none was apparent before,
we experience, at once the true poetical effect; but this effect is
referable to the harmony alone, and not in the least degree to the
truth which mere