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CHAPTER I.

THE SOURCES OF POETRY.

POETRY, we are often told, has but two great objects with which it deals, two substances out of which alone it weaves its many-coloured fabric -Man and Nature. Yet such a statement seems hardly adequate. For is there not in all high Poetry, whether it deals with Nature or with Man, continual reference, now latent, now expressed, to something which is beyond and above both? This reference has taken many shapes, and uttered itself in many ways, according to the belief and civilisation of each age and country. But by whatever mists and obstructions it has been coloured and refracted, it has never been wholly absent from true Poetry, and has been working itself clearer, and making itself more powerfully felt, as the world grows older. The Higher Life encompassing the life both of Man and of Nature; the deeper Foundation on which both ultimately repose; the omnipresent Power which binds both together, and makes them work in unison towards some further end, this has been a truth ever present in the highest Poetry, to which great ४९

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