Page:The nature and elements of poetry, Stedman, 1892.djvu/68

38 concerns itself less with the poet's ideals. Who cares for the ode pronounced at the entrance of this Exposition, while impatient to reach the exhibits within the grounds? Besides, fields of industrial achievement are opened by each investigation, enhancing human welfare, and absorbing our energies. The soldiers of this noble war do not meditate and idealize; their prayer and song are an impulse, not an occupation.

My romancer and scientist goes on to say, "In all The poet's inalienable ground. this the poet loses nothing. It is fundamental fact that the conquest of mystery leads to greater mystery; the more we know the greater the material for the imagination." This I too believe, and that the poet's province is, and ever must be, the expression of the manner in which revealed truths, and truths as yet unseen but guessed and felt by him, affect the emotions and thus sway man's soul.

Therefore his final ground is still his own, and he well may say, as Whitman chanted thirty years ago:—