e waters are the
atmosphere of the sea-god's realm, but are reminded of that reflected
heaven which Hero must have so often watched as it deepened below her
tower in the smooth Hellespont. I call this as high an example of fancy
as could well be found; it is picture and sentiment combined--the very
essence of the picturesque.

But when Keats calls Mercury "the star of Lethe," the word "star" makes
us see him as the poor ghosts do who are awaiting his convoy, while the
word "Lethe" intensifies our sympathy by making us feel his coming as
they do who are longing to drink of forgetfulness. And this again reacts
upon the word "star," which, as it before expressed only the shining of
the god, acquires a metaphysical significance from our habitual
association of star with the notions of hope and promise. Again nothing
can be more fanciful than this bit of Henry More the Platonist:

What doth move
The nightingale to sing so fresh and clear?
The thrush or lark that, mounting high above,
Chants her shrill notes to heedless ears of corn
Heavily hanging in the dewy morn?

But compare this with Keats again:

The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown;
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn.

The imagination has touched that word "alien," and we see the field
through Ruth's eyes, as she looked round on the hostile spikes, not
merely through those of the poet.

CRITICAL FRAGMENTS

I. LIFE IN LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE

It is the office and function of the imagination to renew life in lights
and sounds and emotions that are outworn and familiar. It calls the soul
back once more under the dead ribs of nature, and makes the meanest bush
burn again, as it did to Moses, with the visible presence of God. And it
works the same miracle for language. The word it has touched retains the
warmth of life forever. We talk about the age of superstition and fable
as if they were passed away, as if no ghost could walk in the pure white
light of science, yet the microscope that can distinguish between the
disks that float in the blood of man and ox is helpless, a mere dead
eyeball, before this mystery of Being, this wonder of Life, the sympathy
which puts us in relation with all nature, before that mighty
circulation of Deity in which stars and systems are but