The light which the poet sees around the forms of nature is
not so much in the objects themselves as in the eye that contemplates
them; and Imagination must first be able to lend a glory to such
scenes, before she can derive inspiration _from_ them. As materials,
indeed, for the poetic faculty, when developed, to work upon, these
impressions of the new and wonderful retained from childhood, and
retained with all the vividness of recollection which belongs to
genius, may form, it is true, the purest and most precious part of
that aliment, with which the memory of the poet feeds his imagination.
But still, it is the newly-awakened power within him that is the
source of the charm;--it is the force of fancy alone that, acting upon
his recollections, impregnates, as it were, all the past with poesy.
In this respect, such impressions of natural scenery as Lord Byron
received in his childhood must be classed with the various other
remembrances which that period leaves behind--of its innocence, its
sports, its first hopes and affections--all of them reminiscences
which the poet afterwards converts to his use, but which no more
_make_ the poet than--to apply an illustration of Byron's own--the
honey can be said to make the bee that treasures it.
When it happens--as was the case with Lord Byron in Greece--that the
same peculiar features of nature, over which Memory has shed this
reflective charm, are reproduced before the eyes under new and
inspiring circumstances, and with all the accessories which an
imagination, in its full vigour and wealth, can lend them, then,
indeed, do both the past and present combine to make the enchantment
complete; and never was there a heart more borne away by this
confluence of feelings than that of Byron.
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