ct of the creative imagination; and
in its highest forms there must be energy of passion, intensity yet
delicacy of feeling, loftiness of thought, depth and clearness of
intuitive vision. It is the metrical expression of an exaltation of
soul, which sometimes suffuses the objects of nature and the scenes of
human life with a beauty and glory of its own,--

"The light that never was on sea or land,
The consecration and the poet's dream."

+45. Poetry and Prose.+ Poetry occupies a region above prose. While
prose in its highest flights approaches the plane of poetry, and poetry
in its lowest descent touches the level of prose, they are yet
essentially different. The one is commonplace, the other elevated or
ideal. This truth is brought out clearly when we compare the same fact
or incident of history as related in poetry and prose. The "AEneid" is
very unlike a prose account of the founding of Rome. We sometimes say in
plain prose, "The evening passed pleasantly and quickly"; but when the
poet describes it, there is an elevation of thought and glow of feeling
that make it ideal:

"The twilight hours like birds flew by,
As lightly and as free;
Ten thousand stars were in the sky,
Ten thousand in the sea.
For every wave with dimpled face
That leaped upon the air,
Had caught a star in its embrace,
And held it trembling there."

+46. Sources of Poetry.+ Nature is filled with poetry. The great poet is
God, and he has filled the universe with rhythm, harmony, beauty. Human
poems are but faulty shells gathered on the shore of the divine ocean of
poetry. The stars are the poetry of the skies. The planets and stellar
systems that circle in their glorious orbits preserve a sublime harmony
of movement. The light that reaches us from distant worlds comes to us
in rhythmical wavelets. Every human life is a poem,--often an amusing
comedy, but still oftener a moving tragedy. The tender friendships, the
innocent joys, the noble aspirations, the high achievements of men,
form the lyric poetry of human existence. The rippling of the forest
stream within its shady banks of fern, the rhythmical roll and heavy
roar of the ocean surges, are the poetry of the sparkling waters. The
audible silence and mysterious whisperings of the dark and majestic
forest, the modest hiding of the little violet that gives charm to some
neglected spot,--this is the poetry of the woods and field