We have a grander expression of the idea from Robert Browning, who relates how the vision of _Sordello_ arises to consciousness: Upthrust, out-staggering on the world, Subsiding into shape, a darkness rears Its outline, kindles at the core--. Is this to say that the poet's intuitions, apparently so sudden, have really been long germinating in the obscure depths of his mind? Then it is in tune with the idea, so prevalent in English verse, that in sleep a mysterious undercurrent of imaginative power becomes accessible to the poet. "Ever when slept the poet his dreams were music," [Footnote: _The Poet's Sleep_.] says Richard Gilder, and the line seems trite to us. There was surely no reason why Keats' title, _Sleep and Poetry_, should have appeared ludicrous to his critics, for from the time of Caedmon onward English writers have been sensitive to a connection here. The stereotyped device of making poetry a dream vision, so popular in the middle ages,--and even the prominence of _Night Thoughts_ in eighteenth century verse--testify that a coupling of poetry and sleep has always seemed natural to poets. Coleridge, [Footnote: See his account of the composition of _Kubla Khan_.] Keats, Shelley, [Footnote: See _Alastor_, and _Prince Athanase_. See also Edmund Gosse, _Swinburne_, p. 29, where Swinburne says he produced the first three stanzas of _A Vision of Spring_ in his sleep.]--it is the romanticists who seem to have depended most upon sleep as bringer of inspiration. And once more, it is Shelley who shows himself most keenly aware that, asleep or waking, the poet feels his afflatus coming in the same manner. Thus he tells us of the singer in _Prince Athanase:_ And through his sleep, and o'er each waking hour Thoughts after thoughts, unresting multitudes, Were driven within him by some secret power Which bade them blaze, and live, and roll afar, Like lights and sounds, from haunted tower to tower. Probably our jargon of the subconscious would not much impress poets, even those whom we have just quoted. Is this the only cause we can give, Shelley might ask, why the poet should not reverence his gift as something apart from himself and truly divine? If, after the fashion of modern psychology, we denote by the subconscious mind only the welter of myriad forgotten details of our daily life, what is there here to account for poesy? The remote, inaccessible chambers of our mind may, to be sure, be more replete with curious lumber than those continually swept and garnished for everyday use, yet, even so, there is nothing in any memory, as such, to account for the fact that poetry reveals things to us above and beyond any of our actual experiences in this world. Alchemist Memory turned his past to gold, [Footnote: _A Life Drama._] says Alexander Smith of his poet, and as an account of inspiration, the line sounds singularly flat. There is nothing here to distinguish the poet from any octogenarian dozing in his armchair.