When the embrace has failed, the rapture fled, Not he, not he, the wild sweet witch is dead, And though he cherisheth The babe most strangely born from out her death, Some tender trick of her it hath, maybe, It is not she. [Footnote: _Sister Songs_.] We have called the poet an egotist, and surely, his attitude toward the blind rout who have had no glimpse of the heavenly vision, is one of contemptuous superiority. But like the priest in the temple, all his arrogance vanishes when he ceases to harangue the congregation, and goes into the secret place to worship. And toward anyone who sincerely seeks the revelation, no matter how feeble his powers may be, the poet's attitude is one of tenderest sympathy and comradeship. Alice Gary pleads, Hear me tell How much my will transcends my feeble powers, As one with blind eyes feeling out in flowers Their tender hues. [Footnote: _To the Spirit of Song_.] And there is not a poet in the last century of such prominence that he does not reverence such a confession, [Footnote: Some poems showing the similarity in such an attitude of great and small alike, follow: _Epistle to Charles C. Clarke_, Keats; _The Soul's Expression_, Mrs. Browning; _Memorial Verses to Wm. B. Scott_, Swinburne; _Sister Songs_, _Proemion to Love in Dian's Lap_, _A Judgment in Heaven_, Francis Thompson; _Urania_, Matthew Arnold; _There Have Been Vast Displays of Critic Wit_, Alexander Smith; _Invita Minerva_ and _L'Envoi to the Muse_, J. R. Lowell; _The Voiceless_, O. W. Holmes; _Fata Morgana_, and _Epimetheus, or the Poet's Afterthought_, Longfellow; _L'Envoi_, Kipling; _The Apology_, and _Gleam on Me, Fair Ideal_, Lewis Morris; _Dedication to Austin Dobson_, E. Gosse; _A Country Nosegay_, and _Gleaners of Fame_, Alfred Austin; _Another Tattered Rhymster in the Ring_, G. K. Chesterton; _To Any Poet_, Alice Meynell; _The Singer_, and _To a Lady on Chiding Me For Not Writing_, Richard Realf; _The Will and the Wing_ and _Though Dowered with Instincts Keen and High_, P. H. Haynes; _Dull Words_, Trumbull Stickney; _The Inner Passion_, Alfred Noyes; _The Veiled Muse_, William Winter; _Sonnet_, William Bennett; _Tell Me_, Max Ehrmann; _The Singer's Plea_, Edward Dowden; _Genius_, R. H. Home; _My Country_, George Woodberry; _Uncalled_, Madison Cawein; Thomas Bailey Aldrich, _At the Funeral of a Minor Poet_; Robert Haven Schauffler, _Overtones, The Silent Singers_; Stephen Vincent Benet, _A Minor Poet_; Alec de Candole, _The Poets_.] and aver that he too is an earnest and humble suppliant in the temple of beauty. For the clearer his glimpse of the transcendent vision has been, the more conscious he is of his blindness after the glory has passed, and the more unquenchable is his desire for a new and fuller revelation. CHAPTER V THE POET'S MORALITY