, more intimate. But Cowper and Thomson
keep themselves out of their nature poetry to such an extent that it is
hard to tell what their ideal position would be, and not till the
publication of Beattie's _The Minstrel_ do we find a poem in which
the poet is nurtured under the influence of a natural scenery. At the
very climax of the romantic period the poet is not always bred in the
country. We find Byron revealing himself as one who seeks nature only
occasionally, as a mistress in whose novelty resides a good deal of her
charm. Shelley, too, portrays a poet reared in civilization, but
escaping to nature. [Footnote: See _Epipsychidion_, and _Alastor_.]
Still, it is obvious that ever since the time of Burns and Wordsworth,
the idea of a poet nurtured from infancy in nature's bosom has been
extremely popular.

There are degrees of naturalness in nature, however. How far from the
hubbub of commercialism should the poet reside? Burns and Wordsworth
were content with the farm country, but for poets whose theories were
not so intimately joined with experience such an environment was too
tame. Bowles would send his visionary boy into the wilderness.
[Footnote: See _The Visionary Boy_.] Coleridge and Southey went so
far as to lay plans for emigrating, in person, to the banks of the
Susquehanna. Shelley felt that savage conditions best foster poetry.
[Footnote: See the _Defense of Poetry_: "In the infancy of society
every author is necessarily a poet."] Campbell, in _Gertrude of
Wyoming_, made his bard an Indian, and commented on his songs,

So finished he the rhyme, howe'er uncouth,
That true to Nature's fervid feelings ran
(And song is but the eloquence of truth).

The early American poet, J. G. Percival, expressed the same theory,
declaring of poetry,

Its seat is deeper in the savage breast
Than in the man of cities.
[Footnote: _Poetry_.]

To most of us, this conception of the poet is familiar because of
acquaintance, from childhood, with Chibiabus, "he the sweetest of all
singers," in Longfellow's _Hiawatha_.

But the poet of to-day may well pause, before he starts to an Indian
reservation. What is the mysterious benefit which the poet derives from
nature? Humility and common sense, Burns would probably answer, and that
response would not appeal to the majority of poets. A mystical
experience of religion, Wordsworth would say, of course. A wealth of
imagery, nineteenth century poets would hardly think it w