wings that upbear the universe.” In the same letter he says: “The proof of poetry is, in my mind, whether it reduces to the essence of a single line the vague philosophy which is floating in all men’s minds, and so renders it portable and useful and ready to the hand. Is it not so? At least no poem ever makes me respect its author which does not in some way convey a truth of philosophy.” In the same temper which produced “Prometheus,” he wrote what he regarded as in some way a companion piece, “A Glance behind the Curtain,” in which he imagines a conversation between Cromwell and Hampden. There is no seeming endeavor at characterization of either figure, dramatically, but the poem, which is an attempt to read Cromwell’s mind, is a stirring and indignant demand that Freedom shall do her perfect work. “Freedom hath yet a work for me to do,” he makes Cromwell exclaim:-- “So speaks that inward voice which never yet Spake falsely, when it urged the spirit on To noble deeds for country and mankind. And for success, I ask no more than this,-- To bear unflinching witness to the truth. All true whole men succeed; for what is worth Success’s name, unless it be the thought, The inward surety, to have carried out A noble purpose to a noble end, Although it be the gallows or the block? ’Tis only Falsehood that doth ever need These outward shows of gain to bolster her.” Thus, in the guise of Cromwell, speaks the young man dimly conscious, in a travailing age, of work needing to be done, and stirred too by the high emotions of the woman he loved, yet not quite able to translate his vague desire to be a champion of Truth into deeds. To be sure, at the close of this poem he remembers that Cromwell was the friend of Milton, “A man not second among those who lived To show us that the poet’s lyre demands An arm of tougher sinew than the sword.” In the dreams of his youth I think he saw himself playing a part in the drama that was opening, and wondering how he could wield the pen so as to make it a weapon for slaying wrong or defending right. Yet direct as he might wish his attack to be, he was held back by an equally potent impulse to fulfil the demands of art. “A Chippewa Legend,” in this same volume, though used as a parable for an impassioned denunciation of slavery, has touches of nature in the unfolding of the story which show clearly how much delight he took in the story itself, and how easily he might have stopped short as a singer, if the preacher in him had not made the song turn out a sermon. The autobiographic element in this volume of “Poems” is most distinctly summed up in a sonnet which dropped out of later collections containing most of the other poems. It bears the title “On my twenty-fourth Birthday, February 22, 1843,” and marks well his own sense of a certain transition which had taken place in his growth.