ns--all forms of thought and
poetry, however wild, if consistent with rational benevolence--all
scenes serious or comic, domestic or historical--all religious
subjects proposing good that will not shock any reasonable number of
reasonable men--all subjects that leave the artist wiser and
happier--and none which intrinsically act otherwise--to sum all,
every thing or incident in nature which excites, or may be made to
excite, the mind and the heart of man as a mentally intelligent, not
as a brute animal, is a subject for Fine Art, at all times, in all
places, and in all ages. But as all these subjects in nature affect
our hearts or our understanding in proportion to the heart and
understanding we have to apprehend and to love them, those will
excite us most intensely which we know most of and love most. But as
we may learn to know them all and to love them all, and what is dark
to-day may be luminous to-morrow, and things, dumb to-day, to-morrow
grow voiceful, and the strange voice of to-day be plain and reproach
us to-morrow; who shall adventure to say that this or that is the
highest? And if it appear that all these subjects in nature _may_
affect us with equal intensity, and that the artist's representations
affect as the subjects affect, then it follows, with all these
subjects, Fine Art may affect us equally; but the subjects may all be
high; therefore, all Fine Art may be High Art.

The Seasons

The crocus, in the shrewd March morn,
Thrusts up its saffron spear;
And April dots the sombre thorn
With gems, and loveliest cheer.

Then sleep the seasons, full of might;
While slowly swells the pod,
And rounds the peach, and in the night
The mushroom bursts the sod.

The winter falls: the frozen rut
Is bound with silver bars;
The white drift heaps against the hut;
And night is pierced with stars.

Dream Land

Where sunless rivers weep
Their waves into the deep,
She sleeps a charmed sleep;
Awake her not.
Led by a single star,
She came from very far,
To seek where shadows are
Her pleasant lot.

She left the rosy morn,
She left the fields of corn,
For twilight cold and lorn,
And water-springs.
Thro' sleep, as thro' a veil,
She sees the sky look pale,
And hears the nightingale,
That sadly sings.

Rest, rest, a perfect rest,
Shed over brow and breast;
Her face is toward the west,
The purple land.
S