Page:Poet Lore, volume 1, 1889.djvu/19

Rh earth's sombre stretch," and make man monstrous? Has he shown for these, its thousand varied expressions in human life, that boundless sympathy, that utter recognition of motive, which has lifted some poets above all restrictions of their environment up to that pinnacle of divine insight where tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner?

Further, has he seized in its grandeur and devoid of prejudice that other and mystic love, the love of the personal ideals, of the Saints and Gods and Holy ones, whom the religious sentiment creates in the longing human heart to satisfy its inexpressive yearnings?

Finally, has he, with the scientist, recognized in love that creative and renovative force which from the inception of organic life has been moulding and remoulding organic form, recasting it ever into higher and higher types, until the long series was completed in man? and has he, with the metaphysician, passing beyond phenomena,, discerned that this same love-force becomes in speculative thought one with the abstractly true, as that which alone is creative, preservative, eternal?

I shall give you the results of my studies on these points without reservation or hesitation, for I take it we assemble here, not to burn sweet incense on a shrine, not to join in singing songs of adulation, but to exercise upon the works of a writer our best and sharpened judgment.

First, our poet recognizes the deep thirst for love in the human heart. Nowhere, perhaps, does he put this more strongly than in the mouth of the queen, the lonely, lofty woman who appears in that piece called "In a Balcony." There have been moments, says she,—

It is to him the power of powers, and I delight in quoting to you these lines of his translation from the "Hippolytus" of Euripides: