n hope? Among the less
vociferous, here are singers whose faces are alight with a mysterious
radiance. Though they promise us little, saying that they themselves are
blinded by the transcendent vision, so that they appear as men groping
in darkness, yet may they not unawares afford us some glimpse of their
transfiguration?

If we refuse the poet's revelation, we have no better way of arriving at
the truth. The scientist offers us little in this field; and his account
of inspiration is as cold and comfortless as a chemical formula. Of
course the scientist is amused by this objection to him, and asks, "What
more do you expect from the effusions of poets? Will not whatever secret
they reveal prove an open one? What will it profit you to learn that the
milk of Paradise nourishes the poetic gift, since it is not handled by
an earthly dairy?" But when he speaks thus, our scientific friend is
merely betraying his ignorance regarding the nature of poetry. Longinus,
[Footnote: _On the Sublime,_ I.] and after him, Sidney, [Footnote:
_Apology for Poetry._] long ago pointed out its peculiar action,
telling us that it is the poet's privilege to make us partakers of his
ecstasy. So, if the poet describes his creative impulses, why should he
not make us sharers of them?

This is not an idle question, for surely Plato, that involuntary poet,
has had just this effect upon his readers. Have not his pictures, in the
_Phaedrus_ and the _Ion_, of the artist's ecstasy touched Shelley and
the lesser Platonic poets of our time with the enthusiasm he depicts?
Incidentally, the figure of the magnet which Plato uses in the
Ion may arouse hope in the breasts of us, the humblest readers of
Shelley and Woodberry. For as one link gives power of suspension to
another, so that a ring which is not touched by the magnet is yet
thrilled with its force, so one who is out of touch with Plato's
supernal melodies, may be sensitized by the virtue imparted to his
nineteenth century disciples, who are able to "temper this planetary
music for mortal ears."

Let us not lose heart, at the beginning of our investigation, though our
greatest poets admit that they themselves have not been able to keep
this creative ecstasy for long. To be sure this is disillusioning. We
should prefer to think of their silent intervals as times of insight too
deep for expression; as Anna Branch phrases it,

When they went
Unto the fullness of their great content
Like moths