ts
youth, it is as a time of imagination; and if he trusts imagination, it is
as a faculty for apprehending the Universal in life--that is to say, a
divine law behind its shows and simulacra.

"In 'The Empty Purse' you will find him instructing youth towards this
law; but that there may be no doubt of his own belief in it, as an order
not only controlling men but overriding angels and demons, first consider
his famous sonnet, 'Lucifer in Starlight'--to my thinking one of the
finest in our language:--

"'On a starred night Prince Lucifer uprose.
Tired of his dark dominion swung the fiend
Above the rolling ball in cloud part screened,
Where sinners hugged their spectre of repose.
Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those.
And now upon his western wing he leaned,
Now his huge bulk o'er Afric's sands careened,
Now the black planet shadowed Arctic snows.
Soaring through wider zones that pricked his scars
With memory of the old revolt from Awe,
He reached a middle height, and at the stars,
Which are the brain of Heaven, he looked, and sank.
Around the ancient track marched, rank on rank,
The army of unalterable law.'"

"Suppose my contention--that poetry should concern itself with
universals--to be admitted: suppose we all agreed that Poetry is an
expression of the universal element in human life, that (as Shelley puts
it) 'a poem is the very image of life expressed in its eternal truth.'
There remains a question quite as important: and that is, How to recognise
the Universal when we see it? We may talk of a Divine law, or a Divine
order--call it what we will--which regulates the lives of us poor men no
less than the motions of the stars, and binds the whole universe, high and
low, into one system: and we may have arrived at the blessed wish to
conform with this law rather than to strive and kick against the pricks
and waste our short time in petulant rebellion. So far, so good: but how
are we to know the law? How, with the best will in the world, are we to
distinguish order from disorder? What assurance have we, after striving
to bring ourselves into obedience, that we have succeeded? We may agree,
for example, with Wordsworth that Duty is a stern daughter of the Voice of
God, and that through Duty 'the most ancient heavens,' no less than we
ourselves, are kept fresh and strong. But can we always discern this
Univ