PRIMEVAL IMAGINATION WORKING ON NATURE—LANGUAGE AND MYTHOLOGY 87 CHAPTER VIII. SOME OF THE WAYS IN WHICH POETS DEAL WITH NATURE 102 CHAPTER IX. NATURE IN HEBREW POETRY, AND IN HOMER 136 CHAPTER X. NATURE IN LUCRETIUS AND VIRGIL 153 CHAPTER XI. NATURE IN CHAUCER, SHAKESPEARE, AND MILTON 170 CHAPTER XII. RETURN TO NATURE BEGUN BY ALLAN RAMSAY AND THOMSON 193 CHAPTER XIII. NATURE IN COLLINS, GRAY, GOLDSMITH, COWPER, AND BURNS 205 CHAPTER XIV. WORDSWORTH AS AN INTERPRETER OF NATURE 235 THE POETIC INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. CHAPTER I. THE SOURCES OF POETRY. Poetry, we are often told, has two great objects with which it deals, two substances out of which alone it weaves its many-colored 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 civilization of each age and country. But by whatever mists and obstructions it has been colored 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 toward some further end,—this has been a truth ever present in the highest Poetry, to which great Poets have always witnessed. Therefore, even in the most summary view of the domain of Poetry, we must not omit this invisible but most powerful element. To express it clearly, we must say that Poetry has three objects, which in varying degrees enter into it,—Man, Nature, and God. The presence of this last pervades all great Poetry, whether it lifts an eye of reverence directly towards Himself, or whether the presence be only indirectly felt, as the centre to which all deep thoughts about Man and Nature ultimately tend. Regarded in this view, the field over which Poetry ranges becomes coextensive with the domain of Philosophy, and indeed of Theology. Dissimilar, often opposed, as is the procedure of Poetry, of Philosophy, and of Theology, different as are the faculties which each calls into play, and the mode in which these faculties deal with their objects, yet the hinges on which all alike turn, the cardinal conceptions on which their eye is fixed, are