And this, again, links up
with what is perhaps the commonest form of invocation in modern poetry,
namely, prayer that God, the spirit of the universe, may inspire the
poet. For what does the poet mean when he calls himself the voice of
God, but that he is intuitively aware of the eternal verities in the
world? Poets who speak in this way ever conceive of God as Shelley did,
in what is perhaps the most profoundly sincere invocation of the last
century, his _Hymn to Intellectual Beauty_. All poets are
idealists.
There is yet another view of the spirit who inspires poetry, which may
seem more characteristic of our poets than are these others. It
is expressed in the opening of Shelley's _Alastor_, and informs the
whole of the _Ode to the West Wind_. It pervades Wordsworth, for if
he seldom calls upon his natural environment as muse, he is yet
profoundly conscious that his song is an inflowing from the heart of
nature. This power has become such a familiar divinity to later singers
that they are scarcely aware how great is their dependence upon her.
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