Perhaps this is a true expression of the poet's feelings during the deepest inspiration, yet we are minded of Elijah's experience with the wind and the fire and the still small voice. So we cannot help sympathizing with Browning's protest against "friend Naddo's" view that genius is a matter of bizarre and grandiose sensations. [Footnote: _Sordello_.] At least it is pleasant to find verse, by minor writers though it be, describing the quietude and naturalness of the poet's best moments. Thus Holmes tells us of his inspiration: Soft as the moonbeams when they sought Endymion's fragrant bower, She parts the whispering leaves of thought To show her full-leaved flower. [Footnote: _Invita Minerva_.] Edwin Markham says, She comes like the hush and beauty of the night. [Footnote: _Poetry_.] And Richard Watson Gilder's mood is the same: How to the singer comes his song? How to the summer fields Come flowers? How yields Darkness to happy dawn? How doth the night Bring stars? [Footnote: _How to the Singer Comes His Song?_] Various as are these accounts which poets give of their inspired moments, all have one point in common, since they indicate that in such moments the poet is wholly passive. His thought is literally given to him. Edward Dowden, in a sonnet, _Wise Passiveness_, says this plainly: Think you I choose or that or this to sing? I lie as patient as yon wealthy stream Dreaming among green fields its summer dream, Which takes whate'er the gracious hours will bring Into its quiet bosom. To the same effect is a somewhat prosaic poem, _Accident in Art_, by Richard Hovey. He inquires, What poet has not found his spirit kneeling A sudden at the sound of such or such Strange verses staring from his manuscript, Written, he knows not how, but which will sound Like trumpets down the years. Doubtless it is a very natural result of his resignation to this creative force that one of the poet's profoundest sensations during his afflatus should be that of reverence for his gift. Longfellow and Wordsworth sometimes speak as if the composition of their poems were a ceremony comparable to high mass. At times one must admit that verse describing such an attitude has a charm of its own. [Footnote: Compare Browning's characterization of the afflatus of Eglamor in _Sordello_, Book II.] In _The Song-Tree_ Alfred Noyes describes his first sensation as a conscious poet: The first note that I heard, A magical undertone, Was sweeter than any bird --Or so it seemed to me-- And my tears ran wild. This tale, this tale is true. The light was growing gray, And the rhymes ran so sweet (For I was only a child) That I knelt down to pray. But our sympathy with this little poet would not be nearly so intense were he twenty years older. When it is said of a mature poetess,