The Poet's Mission.--"The poets of the world," says the poetic Dr. Holland, "are the prophets of humanity. They forever reach after and foresee the ultimate good. They are evermore building the paradise that is to be, painting the millennium that is to come, restoring the lost image of God in the human soul. When the world shall reach the poet's ideal, it will arrive at perfection; and much good will it do the world to measure itself by this ideal and struggle to lift the real to its lofty level." [1] In the light of such a noble utterance, how paltry the ordinary concept of the poet as a mere verse-builder. His true mission is to exalt the ideal, and encourage the listless or struggling real to advance toward it and eventually attain perfection. Dreamers and Builders.--In this age of money-worship, the poet is often referred to, and at times even ridiculed, as a "dreamer." But the ridicule, when applied to a real poet, a true son or daughter of the Muses, is pointless. The poet _is_ a dreamer; but so is the architect and the projector of railroads. All creative minds are dreamful, imaginative, poetic. Were it otherwise, nothing worth while would be created. If there were no dreamers, there would be no builders. Both are necessary to progress. Every art and every science has its share of poetic idealism, of poetic enthusiasm, and must have it, in order to achieve best results. Well worthy of a place beside Doctor Holland's beautiful thought on poets and their ideals, is the following sentiment on dreamers, from the pen of the popular essayist, James Allen: "As the visible world is sustained by the invisible, so men, through all their trials and sins and sordid vocations, are nourished by the beautiful visions of their solitary dreamers. Humanity cannot forget its dreamers; it cannot let their ideals fade and die; it lives in them; it knows them as the _realities_ which it shall one day see and know. Composer, sculptor, painter, poet, prophet, sage, these are the makers of the after-world, the architects of heaven. The world is beautiful because they have lived; without them, laboring humanity would perish." [2] Poets and Prophets.--Poets are prophets of a lesser degree; and the prophets are the mightiest of the poets. They hold the key to the symbolism of the universe, and they alone are qualified to interpret it. Prophets, mightiest of the poets, They to whom the Gods tell secrets, Doing naught till true revealings Have made wise their trusted servants, Who in turn make wise the people; Bringing past and future present For the betterment of all men, Earth for every change preparing On her pilgrimage to glory. [3]