What is the nature of his religious instinct? He is
mad with thirst for God; he will have no God but his own humanity. What
is his mission? He must awaken men to the wonder of the physical world
and fit them to abide therein; he must redeem them from physical
bondage, and open their eyes to the spiritual world.
The impatient listener to this lengthy catalogue of the poet's views may
assert that it has no significance. It merely shows that there are many
kinds of poets, who attempt to imitate many aspects of human life. But
surely our catalogue does not show just this. There is no multiform
picture of the poet here. The pendulum of his desire vibrates
undeviatingly between two points only. Sense and spirit, spirit and
sense, the pulse of his nature seems to reiterate incessantly. There is
no poet so absorbed in sensation that physical objects do not
occasionally fade into unreality when he compares them with the spirit
of life. Even Walt Whitman, most sensuous of all our poets, exclaims,
Sometimes how strange and clear to the soul
That all these solid things are indeed but apparitions,
concepts, non-realities.
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