Although the rhythm here is one of the most difficult, the versification could scarcely be improved.  No nobler theme ever engaged the pen of poet.  It is the soul-elevating idea that no man can consider himself entitled to complain of Fate while in his adversity he still retains the unwavering love of woman.

From Alfred Tennyson, although in perfect sincerity I regard him as the noblest poet that ever lived, I have left myself time to cite only a very brief specimen.  I call him, and think him the noblest of poets, not because the impressions he produces are at all times the most profound—­not because the poetical excitement which he induces is at all times the most intense—­but because it is at all times the most ethereal—­in other words, the most elevating and most pure.  No poet is so little of the earth, earthy.  What I am about to read is from his last long poem, “The Princess:” 

    Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
  Tears from the depth of some divine despair
  Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
  In looking on the happy Autumn fields,
  And thinking of the days that are no more.

    Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
  That brings our friends up from the underworld,
  Sad as the last which reddens over one
  That sinks with all we love below the verge;
  So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

    Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
  The earliest pipe of half-awaken’d birds
  To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
  The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
  So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

    Dear as remember’d kisses after death,
  And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign’d
  On lips that are for others; deep as love,
  Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
  O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

Thus, although in a very cursory and imperfect manner, I have endeavored to convey to you my conception of the Poetic Principle.  It has been my purpose to suggest that, while this Principle itself is strictly and simply the Human Aspiration for Supernal Beauty, the manifestation of the Principle is always found in an elevating excitement of the soul, quite independent of that passion which is the intoxication of the Heart, or of that truth which is the satisfaction of the Reason.  For in regard to passion, alas! its tendency is to degrade rather than to elevate the Soul.  Love, on the contrary—­Love—­the true, the divine Eros—­the Uranian as distinguished from the Dionasan Venus—­is unquestionably the purest and truest of all poetical themes.  And in regard to Truth, if, to be sure, through the attainment of a truth we are led to perceive a harmony where none was apparent before, we experience at once the true poetical effect; but this effect is referable to the harmony alone, and not in the least degree to the truth which merely served to render the harmony manifest.