is Greek, as Greek as a thing from Homer or Theocritus; it is composed with the eye on the object, a radiancy and light clearness being added.  German poetry abounds in specimens of the faithful way of handling nature; an excellent example is to be found in the stanzas called Zueignung[285], prefixed to Goethe’s poems; the morning walk, the mist, the dew, the sun, are as faithful as they can be, they are given with the eye on the object, but there the merit of the work, as a handling of nature, stops; neither Greek radiance nor Celtic magic is added; the power of these is not what gives the poem in question its merit, but a power of quite another kind, a power of moral and spiritual emotion.  But the power of Greek radiance Goethe could give to his handling of nature, and nobly too, as any one who will read his Wanderer,—­the poem in which a wanderer falls in with a peasant woman and her child by their hut, built out of the ruins of a temple near Cuma,—­may see.  Only the power of natural magic Goethe does not, I think, give; whereas Keats passes at will from the Greek power to that power which is, as I say, Celtic; from his

  “What little town, by river or seashore—­”

to his

  “White hawthorn and the pastoral eglantine,
  Fast-fading violets cover’d up in leaves—­“[286]

or his

  “... magic casements, opening on the foam
  Of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn—­“[287]

in which the very same note is struck as in those extracts which I quoted from Celtic romance, and struck with authentic and unmistakable power.

Shakespeare, in handling nature, touches this Celtic note so exquisitely, that perhaps one is inclined to be always looking for the Celtic note in him, and not to recognize his Greek note when it comes.  But if one attends well to the difference between the two notes, and bears in mind, to guide one, such things as Virgil’s “moss-grown springs and grass softer than sleep:”—­

  “Muscosi fontes et somno mollior herba—­“[288]

as his charming flower-gatherer, who—­

  “Pallentes violas et summa papavera carpens
  Narcissum et florem jungit bene olentis anethi—­“[289]

as his quinces and chestnuts:—­

  " ... cana legam tenera lanugine mala
  Castaneasque nuces ..."[290]

then, I think, we shall be disposed to say that in Shakespeare’s

  “I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
  Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
  Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
  With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine—­“[291]

it is mainly a Greek note which is struck.  Then, again in his

  " ... look how the floor of heaven
  Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold!"[292]

we are at the very point of transition from the Greek note to the Celtic; there is the Greek clearness and brightness, with the Celtic aerialness and magic coming in.  Then we have the sheer, inimitable Celtic note in passages like this:—­