The grandeur and granite-like weight of Milton's learning was fed by the high traditions of Greece and Rome; but, in his heart of hearts, far deeper than anything that moved him in Aeschylus or Virgil, was the devotion he had for the religion of Israel, and the Fear of Him who "sitteth between the Cherubims." It is often forgotten, amid the welter of modern ethical ideals and modern mystical theosophies, how grand and unique a thing is this Religion of Israel--a religion whose God is at once Personal and Invisible. After all, what do we know? A Prince of Righteousness, a King of Sion, a Shepherd of his People--such a "Living God" as David cries out upon, with those dramatic cries that remain until today the most human and tragic of all our race's wrestling with the Unknown--is this not a Faith quite as "possible" and far more moving, than all the "Over-Souls" and "Immanent All's Fathers" and "Streams of Tendency" which have been substituted for it by unimaginative modern "breadth of mind"? It is time that it was made clear that the alternative at present for all noble souls is between the reign of "crass Casuality" and the reign of Him "who maketh the clouds His chariot and walketh upon the wings of the wind." Those who, "with Democritus, set the world upon Chance" have a right to worship their Jesus of Nazareth, and, in him, the Eternal Protest against the Cruelty of Life. But if Life is to be deified, if Life is to be "accepted," if Life is to be worshipped; if Courage, not Love, be the secret of the cosmic system, then let us call aloud upon it, under personal and palpable symbols, in the old imaginative, _poetic_ way, rather than fool ourselves with thin mysticities, vague intuitions, and the "sounding brass" of "ethical ideals"! The earlier poems of Milton are among the most lovely in the English language. Lycidas is, for those who understand what poetry means, the most lovely of all. There is nothing, anywhere, quite like this poem. The lingering, elaborate harmonies, interrupted in pause after pause, by lines of reverberating finality; and yet, sweetly, slowly leading on to a climax of such airy, lucid calm--it is one's "hope beyond hope" of what a poem should be. The absence of vulgar sentiment, the classic reserve, the gentle melancholy, the delicate gaiety, the subtle interweaving of divine, rhythmic cadences, the ineffable lightness of touch, as of cunning fingers upon reluctant clay; is there anything in poetry to equal these things? One does not even regret the sudden devastating apparition of that "two-handed engine at the door." For one remembers how wickedly, how mercilessly, the beauty of life is even now being spoiled by these accursed "hirelings"--and now, as then, "nothing said."