There is no sweetness so sweet as that of a large and deep nature; there is no knowledge so good, so strengthening as that of a great mind, which is forever filling itself afresh. "Out of the eater comes forth meat; out of the strong comes forth sweetness." Here is one of such "dulcedines veræ the sweetness of a strong man. "Now came still evening on, and twilight gray And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw." Were we inclined to do anything but enjoy this and be thankful-giving ourselves up to its gentleness, informing ourselves with its quietness and beauty, we would note the simplicity, the neutral tints, the quietness of its language, the "sober livery" in which its thoughts are clad. In the first thirty-eight words, twenty-nine are monosyllables. Then there is the gradual way in which the crowning fantasy is introduced. It comes upon us at once, and yet not wholly unexpected; it "sweetly creeps" into our "study of imagination;" it lives and moves, but it is a moving that is "delicate; it flows in upon us incredibili lenitate. Evening" is a matter of fact, and its stillness too light " is little more. We feel the first touch of spiritual life in "her sober livery," and bolder and deeper in "all 66 a time of the day; and "twi hings clad." Still we are not deep, the real is not yet transfigured and transformed, and we are brought back into it after being told that "Silence accompanied," by the explanatory "for," and the bit of sweet natural history of the beasts and birds. The mind dilates and is moved, its eye detained over the picture; and then comes that rich, "thick warbled note "-"all but the wakeful nightingale;" this fills and informs the ear making it also" of apprehension more quick," and we are prepared now for the great idea coming "into the eye and prospect of our soul" SILENCE WAS PLEASED! There is nothing in all poetry above this. Still evening and twilight gray are now Beings, coming on, and walking over the earth like queens, "with Silence," "Admiration's speaking'st tongue," as their pleased companion. All is "calm and free,” and "full of life," it is a 66 Holy Time." What a picture! what simplicity of means! what largeness and perfectness of effect!-what knowledge and love of nature! what supreme art! - what modesty and submission what self-possession! what plainness, what selectness of speech! "As is the height, so is the depth. The intensities must be at once opposite and equal. As the liberty, so the reverence for law. As the independence, so must be the seeing and the service, and the submission to the Supreme Will. As the ideal genius and the originality, so must be the resignation to the real world, the sympathy and the intercommunion with Nature."- Coleridge's Posthumous Tract "The Idea of Life." Since writing the above, our friend "E. V. K." has shown himself curiously unaffected by "that last infirmity of noble minds," — his "clear spirit" heeds al "This that now are beget the things to be, A child like him now prattling on thy knee; And he in tuvi Effects at first, ere long shall offspring see. eem causes at the last, Yet only seem, when off their veil is cast, All speak alike or mightier energy, Received and pass'd along. The life that flows Through space and time, bursts in a loftier source. What's spaced and timed is bounded, therefore shows Templed in that indr itude, before Whose light-veil'd porch men wonder and adore. Dare not to doubt. Man, know thyself! and know Above the Infinite, if we could show All that He is and how things from Him flow. Things and their laws by Man are grasp'd and kenn'd But creatures must no more; and Nature's must Is Reason's choice; for could we all reveal III. "Then rest here, brother! and within the veil On soundless depths; securely fold thy sail. He stands beside thee-touch, and thou art whole.” |