* Thence spring immediately admiration of the fair flowers,
the fairer forests, the bright valleys and rivers and mountains of the
Earth- and love of the gleaming stars and other burning glories of
Heaven- and, mingled up inextricably with this love and this
admiration of Heaven and of Earth, the unconquerable desire- to
know. Poesy is the sentiment of Intellectual Happiness here, and the
Hope of a higher Intellectual Happiness hereafter.*(2)
* We separate the sublime and the mystical- for, despite of high
authorities, we are firmly convinced that the latter may exist, in the
most vivid degree, without giving rise to the sense of the former.
*(2) The consciousness of this truth was by no mortal more fully
than by Shelley, although he has only once especially alluded to it.
In his Hymn to intellectual Beauty we find these lines.
While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped
Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin,
And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing
Hopes of high talk with the departed dead:
I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed:
I was not heard: I saw them not.
When musing deeply on the lot
Of life at that sweet time when birds are wooing
All vital things that wake to bring
News of buds and blossoming,
Sudden thy shadow fell on me-
I shrieked and clasped my hands in ecstasy!
I vow'd that I would dedicate my powers
To thee and thine: have I not kept the vow?
With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now
I call the phantoms of a thousand hours
Each from his voiceless grave: they have in vision'd bowers
Of studious zeal or love's delight
Outwatch'd with me the envious night:
They know that never joy illum'd my brow,
Unlink'd with hope that thou wouldst free,
This world from its dark slavery,
That thou, O awful Loveliness,
Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express.
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