Page:The spirit of the Hebrew poetry 1861.djvu/120

 tain no recognition, explicit or tacit, of this proper element and germ of true Poetry.

Whether or not a belief of this kind may have obtained a place in our Creed, the feeling is deep in every human spirit, to this effect—That, at some time—we know not when—in some world, or region—we know not where—the brightest of those things which the Poet imagines were realized in the lot of man. But is, then, this conception an illusion? Is it a myth that has had no warrant? It is not so, nor may we so think of it. If there had been no such reality, there could have been no such imagination. If there had been no Garden of Eden, as a first page in human history, never should the soothings of Poetry have come in to cheer the gloom of common life, or to temper its griefs;—never should its aspirations have challenged men to admit other thoughts than those of a sensual or a sordid course.

Four words—each of them full of meaning—comprise the conceptions which we attribute to the Paradisaical state. They are these— and it is toward these conditions of earthly happiness that the human mind reverts, as often as it turns, sickened and disappointed from the pursuit of whatever else it may ever have laboured to acquire. The Innocence which we here think of is not virtue, recovered:—it is not virtue that has passed through its season of trial; but it is Moral Perfectness, darkened by no thought or knowledge of the contrary. This Para-