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Show WHAT IS POETRY? A smile, a tear, a longing after the things of eternity! It lives in all created existence, in man, and every object that surrounds him. There is poetry in the gentle influences of love and affection, in the quiet broodings of the soul over the memories of early years, and in the thoughts of that glory which chains our spirits to the gates of paradise. There is poetry, too, in the harmonies of nature. It glitters in the wave, the rainbow, the lightning and the star ?? ?? is heard in the thunder and the cataract, its softer tones go sweetly up from the thousand voice harps of the wind and rivulet and forest, and the cloud and sky go floating over us to the music of its melodies. There is not a moonlight ray that comes down upon the stream or hill, not a breeze calling from its blue air, thrown to the birds of the summer valleys, or sounding through midnight rains its low and mournful dirge over the ?? flowers of spring-not a cloud bathing ?? like an angel vision in the rosy blushes of autumn twilight-not a rock glowing in the yellow starlight, as if dreaming of the Eden land, but is full of the beautiful radiance of poetry. It is the soul of being. The earth and heaven are quickened by its spirit and the heavings of the great deep in tempest and calm are but its ascent and mysterious working. |