Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/326

296 art must originate if at all. As for the new learning—

For one, I believe that the best age of imaginative production is not past; that poetry is to retain, as of old, its literary import, and from time to time to prove itself a force in national life; that the Concord optimist and poet was sane in declaring that "the arts, as we know them, are but initial," that "sooner or later that which is now life shall be poetry, and every fair and manly trait shall add a richer strain to the song."

And now, after all that has been said in our consideration Thoughts in conclusion. of the nature of poetry, and although this has been restricted closely to its primal elements, I am sensible of having merely touched upon an inexhaustible theme; that my comments have been only "words along the way." Meanwhile the press teems with criticism, our time