No, the poet will not allow us to take his words too seriously, lest we drag down Apollo to the level of Bacchus. In spite of the convincing realism in certain eulogies, it is clear that to the poet, as to the convert at the eucharist, wine is only a symbol of a purely spiritual ecstasy. But if intoxication is only a figure of speech, it is a significant one, and perhaps some of the other myths describing the poet's sensations during inspiration may put us on the trail of its meaning. Of course, in making such an assumption, we are precisely like the expounder of Plato's myths, who is likely to say, "Here Plato was attempting to shadow forth the inexpressible. Now listen, and I will explain exactly what he meant." Notwithstanding, we must proceed. The device of Chaucer's _House of Fame_, wherein the poet is carried to celestial realms by an eagle, occasionally occurs to the modern poet as an account of his _Aufschwung_. Thus Keats, in _Lines to Apollo_, avers, Aye, when the soul is fled Too high above our head, Affrighted do we gaze After its airy maze As doth a mother wild When her young infant child Is in an eagle's claws. "Poetry, my life, my eagle!" [Footnote: _Aurora Leigh_.] cries Mrs. Browning, likening herself to Ganymede, ravished from his sheep to the summit of Olympus. The same attitude is apparent in most of her poems, for Mrs. Browning, in singing mood, is precisely like a child in a swing, shouting with delight at every fresh sensation of soaring. [Footnote: See J. G. Percival, _Genius Awaking_, for the same figure.] Again, the crash of the poet's inspiration upon his ordinary modes of thought is compared to "fearful claps of thunder," by Keats [Footnote: See _Sleep and Poetry_.] and others. [Footnote: See _The Master_, A. E. Cheney.] Or, more often, his moment of sudden insight seems a lightning flash upon the dark ways in which he is ordinarily groping. Keats says that his early visions were seen as through a rift of sheet lightning. [Footnote: See _The Epistle to George Keats_.] Emerson's impression is the same; visions come "as if life were a thunderstorm wherein you can see by a flash the horizon, and then cannot see your hand." [Footnote: _Essay on Inspiration_.] Likewise Alexander Smith declares, Across the midnight sea of mind A thought comes streaming like a blazing ship Upon a mighty wind, A terror and a glory! Shocked with light, His boundless being glares aghast. [Footnote: _A Life Drama_.]