Poetry, we are often told, has two great objects with which it deals, two substances out of which alone it weaves its many-colored fabric—Man and Nature. Yet such a statement seems hardly adequate. For is there not in all high Poetry, whether it deals with Nature or with Man, continual reference, now latent, now expressed, to something which is beyond and above both? This reference has taken many shapes, and uttered itself in many ways, according to the belief and civilization of each age and country. But by whatever mists and obstructions it has been colored and refracted, it has never been wholly absent from true Poetry, and has been working itself clearer, and making itself more powerfull…
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