1 into being, as they came into it, at the word, "Let there be light." We know that the whole material universe does verily exist within that seeming void, which we are exploring, at the same instant, with the eye of the body and the eye of thought. Yet more, much more than this is included (inevitably included) in the association of ideas awakened by the silent, solitary firmament. We feel that all the invisible world of spirits, disembodied or pure, I say feel, because, abstract them as we may, every idea we can frame of spiritual essences will be crudely material,-we feel that all these must be somewhere within that impenetrable veil, which is itself the only perfect emblem of eternity, and is eternity made visible. But dare not pursue the flight further! I must not presume to spy out secrets of the desolate abyss," or, "with the deep-transported mind, to soar Above the wheeling poles, and at heaven's door Look in." the It is enough to have pointed out the way, which those of my auditory who have nerve and power enough may trace to infinity. Such, I am persuaded, will be more and more satisfied with this conclusion, which I would draw from the whole of the antecedent examples:It is the nature of poetry, and the office of the poet, from things that are seen to disclose things that are not seen. And hence, to every subject that can be the theme of true poetry, the language of Scripture (neither irreverently nor inappropriately) may be extended; "the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." For those objects which, by near contact, strongly affect the senses, are the realities of mortal life; which either perish in the using, or from which we ourselves must perish, and see, know, suffer, or enjoy them no more for ever. Yet the same objects, when removed to that due distance which clothes them with picturesque or poetical beauty, by being thus made ideal, are made immortal, and of the nature of the thinking principle itself, which "secured of its existence, smiles At the drawn dagger, and defies its point: The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds." The Poetical in Childhood and Old Age. To come home to our own bosoms and personal experience. I have said, that there is much, very much of what is poetical even in ordinary life. Of this, Hope and Memory constitute the principal elements; and these, for the most part, are exercised in reference to age before it arrives, and childhood when it is past,— "Till youth's delirious dream is o'er, In age, when error charms no more, There is this difference between rational and brute beings, that the latter live wholly to the present time and the present scene; and it is only under peculiar excitement, when separated from their young, hurried on by the impulse of appetite, or suddenly removed to a strange place, that they seem conscious of any objects but those around them, and which press immediately upon their senses. They do not spontaneously call up recollections; the past, the absent, and the future are alike forgotten, unregarded, or unknown. But man, endowed with intelligence, lives in the present time, chiefly as a point between that which is gone by and that which is to come, and in the present scene, chiefly as the centre of what is around him. He looks behind and before, above and beneath, and on either hand: but at different stages of the journey of life, his attention is more especially attracted in contrary directions. The infant, so soon as it begins to think and reason, looks wholly before it, in the pursuit of knowledge and power, while desire increases with what it feeds upon, and hope grows out of every indulgence. Impatient of control, and eager to exercise over others that authority which it resents when exercised towards itself, though only for its protection,-it longs for the time when it shall be as old and as strong as its brothers, and sisters, and companions, that it may enjoy the same liberties, and assume the same airs and rights which they do. When a little further grown, the boy,-looking up and pressing onward, as he rises in stature, and feels new capacities expanding within him,-rebels in secret against the yoke, the reins, and the scourge with which he finds himself ruled, however his servitude may be disguised; and he sighs for maturity, that he may go where he pleases, and do what he likes. It is not, then, the toys, the sweetmeats, the holydays, the finery, and the caresses that are lavished upon him, these are mere every-day matters of course, it is something far more intellectual than any childish thing, that constitutes the charm of childish existence. "When I am a man!" is the poetry of childhood; and, Oh! how much is comprehended in that puerile phrase, so often employed by little lips, unconscious of its bitter meaning; and so unheeded by those who are men already, and have forgotten that they ever had a golden dream of that iron age,-a dream to which all the fictions of ro mance are cold and unnatural! "When I am a man!' means, in the mind of a child, when he shall be no more that which he is; when (as he is already by anticipation) he shall be that which he is not,-that which, alas! he never will be,-lord of himself. If we would really know, by a test which will hardly deceive us, the highest happiness of what is (mistakenly I am sure) deemed the happiest period of human life,-let us recollect what were our own emotions when we were cherishing ideas of manhood to come,-but which never did come to the heart as it had been promised to the hope. "When I was a child!" is the poetry of age. Man, advancing in years, enriched with the treasure of disappointed hopes, looks less eagerly before him, because he expects less good, and fears more evil, in this world, in proportion as he proves for himself what are the sad and sober realities of life. Eternity invites him to explore its mysteries, in anticipation of his approaching end; when all his love, and all his hatred, and all his envy shall cease, and there remain no longer a portion to him in all that is done under the sun. [Ecclesiastes ix. 6.] Yet, while caution and prudence, the fruits of many a failure and much suffering, make him peep warily forward into his future trials in the present state,the circumstances of spiritual existence are so utterly unseen and inconceivable by mortal faculties, that, when his mind puts forth its feelers beyond the grave, imperfectly to apprehend a little of the terrors or the glories of an hereafter,-soon coming in contact with things with which flesh and blood can hold no communion, it draws them back with a sensitive collapse, like that which shrinks up a snail when its telescopic eyes suddenly touch a palpable substance. Yet not into itself alone, or even within the circumscribed horizon of the present, does the mind retire from eternity; it takes refuge in past time, and recalls, with fondness and entrancement (unknown while they were in his power), the sports of infancy, the raptures of boyhood, and the passionate pursuits of youth. But, in the dream of memory, he forgets that while he was passing successively through these, the poetry of Hope was, in each, alluring him forward to the stage beyond; and even through the matter-of-fact period of maturity continued to decoy him from the every-day business of life, till he arrived at that barrier where "desire faileth, because man goeth to his long home." It is from that barrier that he daily looks less and less onward, and more and more behind him, at the scenes which he is leaving for ever, and especially at the earliest, the most endeared, though the most familiar, of the whole series. Ah! then, how naturally will some bright day, among the many clouded ones, recur to him in all its splendour, and be spent, like youth renewed,-spent over again in imagination, through all its hours, with an intensity of enjoyment which the reality never gave never could give, subject, as all present felicities must be, to inconveniences and annoyances, forgotten as soon as they are over; while the ethereal, or rather the ideal, of the scenes and the circumstances alone survives in remembrance. "This lives within him; this shall be A part of his eternity. Amid the cares, the toils, the strife, The weariness and waste of life, That day shall memory oft restore, And, in a moment, live it o'er, When, with a lightning-flash of thought, It is then, in the recollection of such a day, innocently spent with friends, of whom some have been long dead, others are far separated, and a few have grown old with himself, it is then that he can say, |