In internal and external evidence, according to our calendar of the Muses, he is the first-born of the Poets that yet survive the wasteful ravages of hoary Time. He sings not, indeed, of Chaos and Eternal Night. But as one inspired by a heaven-born Muse, he echoes the chorus of the Angelic Song, when on the utterance of the first _fiat_ the Morning Stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Hence we argue, that Poetry is not only prior to prose, but that language, its intellectual and emotional embodiment, is heaven-conceived, and heaven-born. But in a short essay it would be out of place and in bad taste to attempt a discourse upon the broad field of ancient or modern Poetry. We merely attempt to suggest one idea on this rich and lofty theme. Our radical conception of the essential and differential attribute of Poetry, as contradistinguished from prose, however chaste, pure, beautiful, and philosophic, is not mere art, nor science, but _creation_. The universe itself is a grand Heroic Poem. Hence its instrument is that power usually called Imagination. But _human_ imagination is not first, second, or third in rank on the scale of the universe. God Himself imagined the universe before He created it. His imagination is infinite. The Cherubim and Seraphim have wings that elevate them above our zenith. And angels, too, excel us in this creative faculty, and therefore veil their faces before the Majesty of heaven and earth. Still, man has an humble portion of it, and can turn it to a good account. But there is another idea essential to the character of Poetry, as good or evil in its spirit and adornings. We need scarcely say, for we are anticipated by every reflecting mind, that this is the _spirit_ of the Poem. Poetry, in the abstract, is not necessarily good or evil. It may be Christian, Jewish, Pagan, or Infidel in its spirit and tendencies. It may corrupt or purify the heart. It may save or ruin the reader in fortune or in fame. Hence, as Poetry is powerful to elevate or degrade, to purify or to corrupt a people, much depends on the spirit of the Poetry which they may put into the hands of the youth of a country; as well observed by an eminent moralist: 'Let me write the poems or ballads of a people, and I care but little who enacts their laws.'