So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced,
Amid whose swift, half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail;
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves,
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw :

It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,

Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight 't would win me,

That with music loud and long

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware! beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Coleridge.

FROM POESY.

SHE doth tell me where to borrow
Comfort in the midst of sorrow;
Makes the desolatest place
To her presence be a grace,
And the blackest discontents
Be her fairest ornaments.
In my former days of bliss
Her divine skill taught me this:
That from everything I saw
I could some invention draw,
And raise pleasure to her height
By the meanest object's sight, -
By the murmur of a spring,
Or the least bough's rustling,
Or a daisy whose leaves spread,
Shut when Titan goes to bed,
Or a shady bush or tree.
She could more infuse in me
Than all Nature's beauties can

In some other wiser man ;
By her help I also now

Make this churlish place allow

Some things that may sweeten gladness

In the very gall of sadness.

The dull lowness, the black shade,

That these hanging vaults have made;

The strange music of the waves

Beating on these hollow caves;

This black den which rocks emboss,

Overgrown with eldest moss;
The rude portals that give light

More to Terror than Delight;

This my chamber of Neglect,
Walled about with Disrespect,—

From all these, and this dull air,
A fit object for Despair,

She hath taught me by her might
To draw comfort and delight.
Therefore, thou best earthly bliss,
I will cherish thee for this.
Poesy, thou sweet'st content
That e'er Heaven to mortals lent,
Though they as a trifle leave thee,

Whose dull thoughts cannot conceive thee,
Thou then be to them a scorn,

That to naught but earth are born,—

Let my life no longer be

Than I am in love with thee.

Written in Marshalsea Prison.

George Wither.

VI. IMAGINATION AND FANCY.

THE harmonious nave of the cathedral fell asleep, with its arms extended in the shape of a cross.

"SHE comes like the husht beauty of the night,

But sees too deep for laughter;

Her touch is a vibration and a light

From worlds before and after."

Louis Bertrand.

It can

ONE important function of the imagination is to retain the attention in the study of the simplest objects or events. not only penetrate to the depth, but contemplate the simplest aspects of Nature and life. In its workings we often find a conscious or unconscious comparison. There is an unconscious union of conceptions which are remotely separated; but all differences are brought into a harmonious union.

All actions of the imagination are complex; it unites the most diverse ideas; it harmonizes antithetic conceptions; it reconciles opposites, and produces a living, organic unity.

One definition of beauty is "unity in the midst of variety." It is the function of the imagination to discover this unity. It can hold many conceptions simultaneously, and unite them by discovering a central idea.

The combination or comparison of complex conceptions must be immediate and spontaneous, or the result will be the action of fancy, if not of a still lower mental power. The contemplation, too, must be simple and sincere, if not unconscious. Where the comparison is conscious, the process is more the work of fancy; but where contemplation is concentrated at the heart of the object, the union of complex conceptions natural and spontaneous, the relation sincere and sympathetic, then imagination is dominant.

Imagination is often confounded with fancy. To distinguish between them is one of the most helpful means of appreciating the highest action of the imagination.

Fancy has more to do with the playful comparison of objects, with apparent or superficial relation, with the discovery of odd images and illustrations. It is wilder and more extravagant. Imagination deals with the essential nature of objects; fancy, with curious and unexpected resemblances. Imagination is the source of sympathy and insight, and is therefore far more intimately related to feeling than fancy. Fancy is playful and mischievous; it is not the result of a serious mood of mind and heart. Imagination, on the contrary, sees to the depth of things; it is serious, sincere, and truthful. Fancy is often exaggerated and untruthful; it imitates and mocks. Imagination sees things in relation to the heart; it touches the deepest chords of feeling; it is the one faculty which sees the life of things. Without imagination the human soul is imprisoned in a narrow cell, the mind has but one point of view, never sees with other eyes, catches no gleam of the eternal morning, feels no future in the present.

The difference between fancy and imagination can be better illustrated than defined. Let us take two extracts from Shelley. His poem upon "The Cloud" is popular. It is easy for the mind to carry on its playful and beautiful comparison:

I WIELD the flail of the lashing hail,

And whiten the green plains under ;
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,

Leaps on the back of my sailing rack

When the morning star shines dead;

As on the jag of a mountain crag

Which an earthquake rocks and swings,

An eagle alit one moment may sit

In the light of its golden wings.

And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,

Its ardors of rest and of love,

And the crimson pall of eve may fall

From the depth of heaven above,

With wings folded I rest on my airy nest,
As still as a brooding dove.

The variety of images in this poem is often mistaken for imagination. But it is not highly imaginative; the heart is not touched; there is no deep insight into the beauty of the cloud and its relations to the Infinite, or to the soul of man. Hence, it is one of the weakest of Shelley's poems.

There is more imagination in the following four lines from "Prometheus Unbound" than in the whole poem of The Cloud;" more insight, more suggestion of feeling, more realization of the truth of Nature. The subject is the same, but much more simply, sincerely, and sympathetically treated. The mind identifies human experience with Nature, but there is no external comparison.

WE wander'd underneath the young gray dawn,
And multitudes of dense white fleecy clouds
Were wandering in thick flocks along the mountains,
Shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind.

Contrast also with "The Cloud

his masterpiece, if not the greatest masterpiece of lyric poetry the "Prometheus Unbound." This poem is not popular; unfortunately, it is rarely read, even by professed lovers of poetry. It demands the highest activity of the imagination for its comprehension. There is little of fancy, but much of imagination. It is not merely a difference of subject, but a difference of insight, a difference of ideal exaltation.