The clergyman in his
spare hours may be winning battles, the farmer sailing
ships, the banker reaping triumph in the arts: all leading
another life, plying another trade from that they chose;
like the poet's house-builder, who, after all, is
cased in stone,
'By his fireside, as impotent fancy prompts,
Rebuilds it to his liking.'
In such a case the poetry runs underground. The observer
(poor soul, with his documents!) is all abroad. For to
look at the man is but to court deception. We shall see
the trunk from which he draws his nourishment; but he
himself is above and abroad in the green dome of foliage,
hummed through by winds and nested in by nightingales. And
the true realism were that of the poets, to climb up after
him like a squirrel, and catch some glimpse of the heaven
for which he lives. And the true realism, always and
everywhere, is that of the poets: to find out where joy
resides, and give it voice beyond singing.
*
He who shall pass judgment on the records of our life is
the same that formed us in frailty.
*
We are all so busy, and have so many far-off projects to
realise, and castles in the fire to turn into solid
habitable mansions on a gravel soil, that we can find no
time for pleasure trips into the Land of Thought and among
the Hills of Vanity. Changed times, indeed, when we must
sit all night, beside the fire, with folded hands; and a
changed world for most of us, when we find we can pass the
hours without discontent, and be happy thinking.
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