t is no monopoly or singularity, no
privilege of one, but the birthright of the race. Shakspeare knows well
that we shall easily see what he sees; he considers it no secret. We are
always feeling beforehand for every right word now about to be spoken in
the world; many men give tokens of the general habit of thought before
he is born who clearly knows what all were dreaming. Wisdom has only
gone before us on our own path, and we overtake our guide in every
perception. Yet we are lifted quite off our feet by any new possibility
revealed in life: every circle drawn round our own astonishes, though it
be drawn from our centre. The poet in his certainty appears a child of
the heavens, and we strike another foolish line through the crowd, as
though every man were not his own poet as truly as he is his own priest
and governor, as though each were not entitled to see whatever is to be
seen. The masters of thought may teach us better. They address their
loftiest power in us, and never sing to oxen or dogs. The painting,
poem, statue, oratorio, calls to me by name; the morning is an eye that
solicits mine. Shall I take only the husks, and leave to another,
contented, always, the life of life?

He is supreme poet who can make me a poet, able to reach the same
supplies after he is gone. We are bits of iron charged by this magnet,
and lose our quality when it is removed; we are not quite made magnets
as we should be by this magnetic planet and the revolutions of the sun;
yet the great polarity of our globe is a sum of little polarities, and
every scrap of metal has its own. We are made musical by the passing
band; we go on humming and marching to the air; but he who wrote it was
made musical by silence and sunshine. Soon our own vibrations will be
more easily induced, as old instruments sound with a touch or breath. We
shall throb with inarticulate rhythms, and understand the bard who
sings,--

"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter."

The poet is one who has detected this latency of power in every breast.
His delight is a feeling that all doors are open to all, that he is no
favorite, but the rest are late sleepers, and he only earlier awake.
Depth of genius is measured by depth of this conviction. Egotism is
incurable greenness. An artist is one who has more, not less, respect
for the common eye. The seer points always from his own to a public
privilege,--says never, "I, Jesus, have so received," but, "The S