,ideas of ,good and ,evil       ,,by    
,,the ,,same ,,writer--       ,,the     
,,secret ,,rose       ,,the ,,celtic    
,,twilight       ,,poems       ,,the    
,,wind ,,among ,,the ,,reeds       ,,the
 ,,shadowy ,,waters       ,,plays ,,for 
,,an ,,irish ,,theatre           ,,vol4 
,i4  ,,where ,,there ,,is ,,nothing     
,,vol4 ,,ii4 ,,shorter ,,plays          
,ideas of ,good and ,evil   ,second     
,edition     ,ideas of ,good and ,evil4 
,by ,w4 ,b4 ,yeats   ,a4 ,h4 ,,bullen1  
#dg ,great ,russell  ,street1 ,london1  
,w4,c4 ,,mcmiii     ,contents4          
,,what ,,is ',,popular ,,poetry'8       
#a    ,,speaking ,,to ,,the ,,psaltery  
#af    ,,magic                          
#bi    ,,the ,,happiest ,,of ,,the      
,,poets                                 
#gj    ,,the ,,philosophy ,,of          
,,shelley',s ,,poetry                   
#ij    ,,at ,,stratford-,,on-,,avon     
#adb    ,,william ,,blake ,,and ,,the   
,,imagination                           
#afh    ,,william ,,blake ,,and ,,his   

,,illustrations ,,to ,,the ,,divine     
,,comedy     #agf    ,,symbolism ,,in   
,,painting                              
#bbf    ,,the ,,symbolism ,,of ,,poetry 
#bcg    ,,the ,,theatre                 
#beg    ,,the ,,celtic ,,element ,,in   
,,literature                            
#bgj    ,,the ,,autumn ,,of ,,the ,,body
                                        
#bif    ,,the ,,moods                   
#cjf    ,,the ,,body ,,of ,,the ,,father
 ,,christian ,,rosencrux                
#cjh    ,,the ,,return ,,of ,,ulysses   
#cab    ,,ireland ,,and ,,the ,,arts    
#cbj    ,,the ,,galway ,,plains         
#ccc    ,,emotion ,,of ,,multitude      
#cci     ,note4--,the ,essay on         
,symbolism in ,painting originally      
formed part of an ,introduction to ,a   
,book of ,images drawn by ,w4 ,t4       
,horton 7,unicorn ,press71 #ahih4       
,,what ,,is ',,popular ,,poetry'8   ,i  
think it was a ,young ,ireland ,society 
that set my mind running on 'popular    
poetry4' ,we used to discuss everything 

that was known to us about ,ireland1 and
 especially ,irish literature and ,irish
 history4 ,we had no ,gaelic1 but paid  
great honour to the ,irish poets who    
wrote in ,english1 and quoted them in   
our speeches4 ,i could have told you at 
that time the dates of the birth and    
death1 and quoted the chief poems1 of   
men whose names you have not heard1 and 
perhaps of some whose names ,i have     
forgotten4 ,i knew in my heart that the 
most of them wrote badly1 and yet such  
romance clung about them1 such a desire 
for ,irish poetry was in all our minds1 
that ,i kept on saying1 not only to     
others but to myself1 that most of them 
wrote well1 or all but well4 ,i had read
 ,shelley and ,spenser and had tried to 
mix their styles together in a pastoral 
play which ,i have not come to dislike  
much1 and yet ,i do not think ,shelley  
or ,spenser ever moved me as did these  
poets4 ,i thought one day--,i can       
remember the very day when ,i thought   
it--',if somebody could make a style    

which would not be an ,english style and
 yet would be musical and full of       
colour1 many others would catch fire    
from him1 and we would have a really    
great school of ballad poetry in        
,ireland4 ,if these poets1 who have     
never ceased to fill the newspapers and 
the ballad-books with their verses1 had 
a good tradition they would write       
beautifully and move everybody as they  
move me4' ,then a little later on ,i    
thought1 ',if they had something else to
 write about besides political opinions1
 if more of them would write about the  
beliefs of the people like ,allingham1  
or about old legends like ,ferguson1    
they would find it easier to get a      
style4' ,then1 with a deliberateness    
that still surprises me1 for in my heart
 of hearts ,i have never been quite     
certain that one should be more than an 
artist1 that even patriotism is more    
than an impure desire in an artist1 ,i  
set to work to find a style and things  
to write about that the ballad writers  

might be the better4  ,they are no      
better1 ,i think1 and my desire to make 
them so was1 it may be1 one of the      
illusions ,nature holds before one1     
because she knows that the gifts she has
 to give are not worth troubling about4 
,it is for her sake that we must stir   
ourselves1 but we would not trouble to  
get out of bed in the morning1 or to    
leave our chairs once we are in them1 if
 she had not her conjuring bag4 ,she    
wanted a few verses from me1 and because
 it would not have seemed worth while   
taking so much trouble to see my books  
lie on a few drawing-room tables1 she   
filled my head with thoughts of making a
 whole literature1 and plucked me out of
 the ,dublin art schools where ,i should
 have stayed drawing from the round1 and
 sent me into a library to read bad     
translations from the ,irish1 and at    
last down into ,connaught to sit by turf
 fires4 ,i wanted to write 'popular     
poetry' like those ,irish poets1 for ,i 
believed that all good literatures were 

popular1 and even cherished the fancy   
that the ,adelphi melodrama1 which ,i   
had never seen1 might be good           
literature1 and ,i hated what ,i called 
the coteries4 ,i thought that one must  
write without care1 for that was of the 
coteries1 but with a gusty energy that  
would put all straight if it came out of
 the right heart4 ,i had a conviction1  
which indeed ,i have still1 that one's  
verses should hold1 as in a mirror1 the 
colours of one's own climate and scenery
 in their right proportion2 and1 when ,i
 found my verses too full of the reds   
and yellows ,shelley gathered in ,italy1
 ,i thought for two days of setting     
things right1 not as ,i should now by   
making my rhythms faint and nervous and 
filling my images with a certain        
coldness1 a certain wintry wildness1 but
 by eating little and sleeping upon a   
board4 ,i felt indignant with ,matthew  
,arnold because he complained that      
somebody1 who had translated ,homer into
 a ballad measure1 had tried to write   

epic to the tune of ,yankee ,doodle4 ,it
 seemed to me that it did not matter    
what tune one wrote to1 so long as that 
gusty energy came often enough and      
strongly enough4 ,and ,i delighted in   
,victor ,hugo's book upon ,shakespeare1 
because he abused critics and coteries  
and thought that ,shakespeare wrote     
without care or premeditation and to    
please everybody4 ,i would indeed have  
had every illusion had ,i believed in   
that straightforward logic1 as of       
newspaper articles1 which so tickles the
 ears of the shopkeepers2 but ,i always 
knew that the line of ,nature is        
crooked1 that1 though we dig the canal  
beds as straight as we can1 the rivers  
run hither and thither in their         
wildness4  ,from that day to this ,i    
have been busy among the verses and     
stories that the people make for        
themselves1 but ,i had been busy a very 
little while before ,i knew that what we
 call popular poetry never came from the
 people at all4 ,longfellow1 and        

,campbell1 and ,mrs4 ,hemans1 and       
,macaulay in his ,lays1 and ,scott in   
his longer poems are the poets of the   
middle class1 of people who have        
unlearned the unwritten tradition which 
binds the unlettered1 so long as they   
are masters of themselves1 to the       
beginning of time and to the foundation 
of the world1 and who have not learned  
the written tradition which has been    
established upon the unwritten4 ,i      
became certain that ,burns1 whose       
greatness has been used to justify the  
littleness of others1 was in part a poet
 of the middle class1 because though the
 farmers he sprang from and lived among 
had been able to create a little        
tradition of their own1 less a tradition
 of ideas than of speech1 they had been 
divided by religious and political      
changes from the images and emotions    
which had once carried their memories   
backward thousands of years4 ,despite   
his expressive speech which sets him    
above all other popular poets1 he has   

the triviality of emotion1 the poverty  
of ideas1 the imperfect sense of beauty 
of a poetry whose most typical          
expression is in ,longfellow4           
,longfellow has his popularity1 in the  
main1 because he tells his story or his 
idea so that one needs nothing but his  
verses to understand it4 ,no words of   
his borrow their beauty from those that 
used them before1 and one can get all   
that there is in story and idea without 
seeing them1 as if moving before a      
half-faded curtain embroidered with     
kings and queens1 their loves and       
battles and their days out hunting1 or  
else with holy letters and images of so 
great antiquity that nobody can tell the
 god or goddess they would commend to an
 unfading memory4 ,poetry that is not   
popular poetry presupposes1 indeed1 more
 than it says1 though we1 who cannot    
know what it is to be disinherited1 only
 understand how much more1 when we read 
it in its most typical expressions1 in  
the ,epipsychidion of ,shelley1 or in   

,spenser's description of the gardens of
 ,adonis1 or when we meet the           
misunderstandings of others4 ,go down   
into the street and read to your baker  
or your candlestick-maker any poem which
 is not popular poetry4 ,i have heard a 
baker1 who was clever enough with his   
oven1 deny that ,tennyson could have    
known what he was writing when he wrote 
',warming his five wits1 the white owl  
in the belfry sits1' and once when ,i   
read out ,omar ,khayyam to one of the   
best of candlestick-makers1 he said1    
',what is the meaning of we come like   
water and like wind we go8' ,or go down 
into the street with some thought whose 
bare meaning must be plain to everybody2
 take with you ,ben ,jonson's ',beauty  
like sorrow dwelleth everywhere1' and   
find out how utterly its enchantment    
depends on an association of beauty with
 sorrow which written tradition has from
 the unwritten1 which had it in its turn
 from ancient religion2 or take with you
 these lines in whose bare meaning also 

there is nothing to stumble over1 and   
find out what men lose who are not in   
love with ,helen4    ',brightness falls 
from the air1   ,queens have died young 
and fair1   ,dust hath closed ,helen's  
eye4'  ,i pick my examples at random1   
for ,i am writing where ,i have no books
 to turn the pages of1 but one need not 
go east of the sun or west of the moon  
in so simple a matter4  ,on the other   
hand1 when ,walt ,whitman writes in     
seeming defiance of tradition1 he needs 
tradition for his protection1 for the   
butcher and the baker and the           
candlestick-maker grow merry over him   
when they meet his work by chance4      
,nature1 which cannot endure emptiness1 
has made them gather conventions which  
cannot disguise their low birth though  
they copy1 as from far off1 the dress   
and manners of the well-bred and the    
well-born4 ,the gatherers mock all      
expression that is wholly unlike their  
own1 just as little boys in the street  
mock at strangely-dressed people and at 

old men who talk to themselves4  ,there 
is only one kind of good poetry1 for the
 poetry of the coteries1 which          
presupposes the written tradition1 does 
not differ in kind from the true poetry 
of the people1 which presupposes the    
unwritten tradition4 ,both are alike    
strange and obscure1 and unreal to all  
who have not understanding1 and both1   
instead of that manifest logic1 that    
clear rhetoric of the 'popular poetry1' 
glimmer with thoughts and images whose  
'ancestors were stout and wise1' 'anigh 
to ,paradise' 'ere yet men knew the gift
 of corn4' ,it may be that we know as   
little of their descent as men knew of  
'the man born to be a king' when they   
found him in that cradle marked with the
 red lion crest1 and yet we know        
somewhere in the heart that they have   
been sung in temples1 in ladies'        
chambers1 and our nerves quiver with a  
recognition they were shaped to by a    
thousand emotions4 ,if men did not      
remember or half remember impossible    

things1 and1 it may be1 if the worship  
of sun and moon had not left a faint    
reverence behind it1 what ,aran         
fisher-girl would sing--  ',it is late  
last night the dog was speaking of you2 
the snipe was speaking of you in her    
deep marsh4 ,it is you are the lonely   
bird throughout the woods2 and that you 
may be without a mate until you find me4
  ',you promised me and you said a lie  
to me1 that you would be before me where
 the sheep are flocked4 ,i gave a       
whistle and three hundred cries to you2 
and ,i found nothing there but a        
bleating lamb4  ',you promised me a     
thing that was hard for you1 a ship of  
gold under a silver mast2 twelve towns  
and a market in all of them1 and a fine 
white court by the side of the sea4     
',you promised me a thing that is not   
possible2 that you would give me gloves 
of the skin of a fish2 that you would   
give me shoes of the skin of a bird1 and
 a suit of the dearest silk in ,ireland4
  ',my mother said to me not to be      

talking with you1 to-day or to-morrow or
 on ,sunday4 ,it was a bad time she took
 for telling me that1 it was shutting   
the door after the house was robbed4444 
',you have taken the east from me1 you  
have taken the west from me1 you have   
taken what is before me and what is     
behind me2 you have taken the moon1 you 
have taken the sun from me1 and my fear 
is great you have taken ,god from me4'  
,the ,gael of the ,scottish islands     
could not sing his beautiful song over a
 bride1 had he not a memory of the      
belief that ,christ was the only man who
 measured six feet and not a little more
 or less1 and was perfectly shaped in   
all other ways1 and if he did not       
remember old symbolical observances--   
,i bathe thy palms   ,in showers of     
wine1   ,in the cleansing fire1   ,in   
the juice of raspberries1   ,in the milk
 of honey4       99       99       99   
99       99    ,thou art the joy of all 
joyous things1   ,thou art the light of 
the beam of the sun1   ,thou art the    

door of the chief of hospitality1       
,thou art the surpassing pilot star1    
,thou art the step of the deer of the   
hill1   ,thou art the step of the horse 
of the plain1   ,thou art the grace of  
the sun rising1   ,thou art the         
loveliness of all lovely desires4       
,the lovely likeness of the ,lord   ,is 
in thy pure face1   ,the loveliest      
likeness that was upon earth4  ,i soon  
learned to cast away one other illusion 
of 'popular poetry4' ,i learned from the
 people themselves1 before ,i learned it
 from any book1 that they cannot        
separate the idea of an art or a craft  
from the idea of a cult with ancient    
technicalities and mysteries4 ,they can 
hardly separate mere learning from      
witchcraft1 and are fond of words and   
verses that keep half their secret to   
themselves4 ,indeed1 it is certain that 
before the counting-house had created a 
new class and a new art without breeding
 and without ancestry1 and set this art 
and this class between the hut and the  

castle1 and between the hut and the     
cloister1 the art of the people was as  
closely mingled with the art of the     
coteries as was the speech of the people
 that delighted in rhythmical animation1
 in idiom1 in images1 in words full of  
far-off suggestion1 with the unchanging 
speech of the poets4  ,now ,i see a new 
generation in ,ireland which discusses  
,irish literature and history in ,young 
,ireland societies1 and societies with  
newer names1 and there are far more than
 when ,i was a boy who would make verses
 for the people4 ,they have the help1   
too1 of a vigorous journalism1 and this 
journalism sometimes urges them to      
desire the direct logic1 the clear      
rhetoric1 of 'popular poetry4' ,it sees 
that ,ireland has no cultivated         
minority1 and it does not see1 though it
 would cast out all ,english things1    
that its literary ideal belongs more to 
,england than to other countries4 ,i    
have hope that the new writers will not 
fall into its illusion1 for they write  

in ,irish1 and for a people the         
counting-house has not made forgetful4  
,among the seven or eight hundred       
thousand who have had ,irish from the   
cradle1 there is1 perhaps1 nobody who   
has not enough of the unwritten         
tradition to know good verses from bad  
ones1 if he have enough mother-wit4     
,among all that speak ,english in       
,australia1 in ,america1 in ,great      
,britain1 are there many more than the  
ten thousand the prophet saw1 who have  
enough of the written tradition         
education has set in room of the        
unwritten to know good verses from bad  
ones1 even though their mother-wit has  
made them ,ministers of the ,crown or   
what you will8 ,nor can things be better
 till that ten thousand have gone hither
 and thither to preach their faith that 
'the imagination is the man himself1'   
and that the world as imagination sees  
it is the durable world1 and have won   
men as did the disciples of ,him who--  
,his seventy disciples sent   ,against  

religion and government4  #aija4        
,,speaking ,,to ,,the ,,psaltery   ,i   
,i have always known that there was     
something ,i disliked about singing1 and
 ,i naturally dislike print and paper1  
but now at last ,i understand why1 for  
,i have found something better4 ,i have 
just heard a poem spoken with so        
delicate a sense of its rhythm1 with so 
perfect a respect for its meaning1 that 
if ,i were a wise man and could persuade
 a few people to learn the art ,i would 
never open a book of verses again4 ,a   
friend1 who was here a few minutes ago1 
has sat with a beautiful stringed       
instrument upon her knee1 her fingers   
passing over the strings1 and has spoken
 to me some verses from ,shelley's      
,skylark and ,sir ,ector's lamentation  
over the dead ,launcelot out of the     
,morte d',arthur and some of my own     
poems4 ,wherever the rhythm was most    
delicate1 wherever the emotion was most 
ecstatic1 her art was the most          
beautiful1 and yet1 although she        

sometimes spoke to a little tune1 it was
 never singing1 as we sing to-day1 never
 anything but speech4 ,a singing note1 a
 word chanted as they chant in churches1
 would have spoiled everything2 nor was 
it reciting1 for she spoke to a notation
 as definite as that of song1 using the 
instrument1 which murmured sweetly and  
faintly1 under the spoken sounds1 to    
give her the changing notes4 ,another   
speaker could have repeated all her     
effects1 except those which came from   
her own beautiful voice that would have 
given her fame if the only art that     
gives the speaking voice its perfect    
opportunity were as well known among us 
as it was known in the ancient world4   
,,ii  ,since ,i was a boy ,i have always
 longed to hear poems spoken to a harp1 
as ,i imagined ,homer to have spoken    
his1 for it is not natural to enjoy an  
art only when one is by oneself4        
,whenever one finds a fine verse one    
wants to read it to somebody1 and it    
would be much less trouble and much     

pleasanter if we could all listen1      
friend by friend1 lover by beloved4     
,images used to rise up before me1 as ,i
 am sure they have arisen before nearly 
everybody else who cares for poetry1 of 
wild-eyed men speaking harmoniously to  
murmuring wires while audiences in      
many-coloured robes listened1 hushed and
 excited4 ,whenever ,i spoke of my      
desire to anybody they said ,i should   
write for music1 but when ,i heard      
anything sung ,i did not hear the words1
 or if ,i did their natural             
pronunciation was altered and their     
natural music was altered1 or it was    
drowned in another music which ,i did   
not understand4 ,what was the good of   
writing a love-song if the singer       
pronounced love1 'lo-o-o-o-o-ve1' or    
even if he said 'love1' but did not give
 it its exact place and weight in the   
rhythm8 ,like every other poet1 ,i spoke
 verses in a kind of chant when ,i was  
making them1 and sometimes1 when ,i was 
alone on a country road1 ,i would speak 

them in a loud chanting voice1 and feel 
that if ,i dared ,i would speak them in 
that way to other people4 ,one day ,i   
was walking through a ,dublin street    
with the ,visionary ,i have written     
about in ,the ,celtic ,twilight1 and he 
began speaking his verses out aloud with
 the confidence of those who have the   
inner light4 ,he did not mind that      
people stopped and looked after him even
 on the far side of the road1 but went  
on through poem after poem4 ,like       
myself1 he knew nothing of music1 but   
was certain that he had written them to 
a manner of music1 and he had once asked
 somebody who played on a wind          
instrument of some kind1 and then a     
violinist1 to write out the music and   
play it4 ,the violinist had played it1  
or something like it1 but had not       
written it down2 but the man with the   
wind instrument said it could not be    
played because it contained             
quarter-tones and would be out of tune4 
,we were not at all convinced by this1  

and one day1 when we were staying with a
 ,galway friend who is a learned        
musician1 ,i asked him to listen to our 
verses1 and to the way we spoke them4   
,the ,visionary found to his surprise   
that he did not make every poem to a    
different tune1 and to the surprise of  
the musician that he did make them all  
to two quite definite tunes1 which are1 
it seems1 like very simple ,arabic      
music4 ,it was1 perhaps1 to some such   
music1 ,i thought1 that ,blake sang his 
,songs of ,innocence in ,mrs4 ,williams'
 drawing-room1 and perhaps he1 too1     
spoke rather than sang4 ,i1 on the other
 hand1 did not often compose to a tune1 
though ,i sometimes did1 yet always to  
notes that could be written down and    
played on my friend's organ1 or turned  
into something like a ,gregorian hymn if
 one sang them in the ordinary way4 ,i  
varied more than the ,visionary1 who    
never forgot his two tunes1 one for long
 and one for short lines1 and could not 
always speak a poem in the same way1 but

 always felt that certain ways were     
right1 and that ,i would know one of    
them if ,i remembered the way ,i first  
spoke the poem4 ,when ,i got to ,london 
,i gave the notation1 as it had been    
played on the organ1 to the friend who  
has just gone out1 and she spoke it to  
me1 giving my words a new quality by the
 beauty of her voice4   ,,iii  ,then we 
began to wander through the wood of     
error2 we tried speaking through music  
in the ordinary way under ,i know not   
whose evil influence1 until we got to   
hate the two competing tunes and rhythms
 that were so often at discord with one 
another1 the tune and rhythm of the     
verse and the tune and rhythm of the    
music4 ,then we tried1 persuaded by     
somebody who thought quarter-tones and  
less intervals the especial mark of     
speech as distinct from singing1 to     
write out what we did in wavy lines4 ,on
 finding something like these lines in  
,tibetan music1 we became so confident  
that we covered a large piece of        

pasteboard1 which now blows up my fire  
in the morning1 with a notation in wavy 
lines as a demonstration for a lecture2 
but at last ,mr4 ,dolmetsch put us back 
to our first thought4 ,he made us a     
beautiful instrument half psaltery half 
lyre which contains1 ,i understand1 all 
the chromatic intervals within the range
 of the speaking voice2 and he taught us
 to regulate our speech by the ordinary 
musical notes4  ,some of the notations  
he taught us--those in which there is no
 lilt1 no recurring pattern of          
sounds--are like this notation for a    
song out of the first ,act of ,the      
,countess ,cathleen4  ,it is written in 
the old ,c clef1 which is1 ,i am told1  
the most reasonable way to write it1 for
 it would be below the stave on the     
treble clef or above it on the bass     
clef4 ,the central line of the stave    
corresponds to the middle ,c of the     
piano2 the first note of the poem is    
therefore ,d4 ,the marks of long and    
short over the syllables are not marks  

of scansion1 but show the syllables one 
makes the voice hurry or linger over4   
,illustration3 ,song and music4   ,one  
needs1 of course1 a far less complicated
 notation than a singer1 and one is even
 permitted slight modifications of the  
fixed note when dramatic expression     
demands it and the instrument is not    
sounding4 ,the notation which regulates 
the general form of the sound leaves it 
free to add a complexity of dramatic    
expression from its own incommunicable  
genius which compensates the lover of   
speech for the lack of complex musical  
expression4 ,ordinary speech is         
formless1 and its variety is like the   
variety which separates bad prose from  
the regulated speech of ,milton1 or     
anything that is formless and void from 
anything that has form and beauty4 ,the 
orator1 the speaker who has some little 
of the great tradition of his craft1    
differs from the debater very largely   
because he understands how to assume    
that subtle monotony of voice which runs

 through the nerves like fire4  ,even   
when one is speaking to a single note   
sounded faintly on the ,psaltery1 if one
 is sufficiently practised to speak on  
it without thinking about it one can get
 an endless variety of expression4 ,all 
art is1 indeed1 a monotony in external  
things for the sake of an interior      
variety1 a sacrifice of gross effects to
 subtle effects1 an asceticism of the   
imagination4 ,but this new art1 new in  
modern life ,i mean1 will have to train 
its hearers as well as its speakers1 for
 it takes time to surrender gladly the  
gross efforts one is accustomed to1 and 
one may well find mere monotony at first
 where one soon learns to find a variety
 as incalculable as in the outline of   
faces or in the expression of eyes4     
,modern acting and recitation have      
taught us to fix our attention on the   
gross effects till we have come to think
 gesture and the intonation that copies 
the accidental surface of life more     
important than the rhythm2 and yet we   

understand theoretically that it is     
precisely this rhythm that separates    
good writing from bad1 that is the      
glimmer1 the fragrance1 the spirit of   
all intense literature4 ,i do not say   
that we should speak our plays to       
musical notes1 for dramatic verse will  
need its own method1 and ,i have        
hitherto experimented with short lyric  
poems alone2 but ,i am certain that1 if 
people would listen for a while to      
lyrical verse spoken to notes1 they     
would soon find it impossible to listen 
without indignation to verse as it is   
spoken in our leading theatres4 ,they   
would get a subtlety of hearing that    
would demand new effects from actors and
 even from public speakers1 and they    
might1 it may be1 begin even to notice  
one another's voices till poetry and    
rhythm had come nearer to common life4  
,i cannot tell what changes this new art
 is to go through1 or to what greatness 
or littleness of fortune2 but ,i can    
imagine little stories in prose with    

their dialogues in metre going          
pleasantly to the strings4 ,i am not    
certain that ,i shall not see some      
,order naming itself from the ,golden   
,violet of the ,troubadours or the like1
 and having among its members none but  
well-taught and well-mannered speakers  
who will keep the new art from          
disrepute4 ,they will know how to keep  
from singing notes and from prosaic     
lifeless intonations1 and they will     
always understand1 however far they push
 their experiments1 that poetry and not 
music is their object2 and they will    
have by heart1 like the ,irish ,file1 so
 many poems and notations that they will
 never have to bend their heads over the
 book to the ruin of dramatic expression
 and of that wild air the bard had      
always about him in my boyish           
imagination4 ,they will go here and     
there speaking their verses and their   
little stories wherever they can find a 
score or two of poetical-minded people  
in a big room1 or a couple of           

poetical-minded friends sitting by the  
hearth1 and poets will write them poems 
and little stories to the confounding of
 print and paper4 ,i1 at any rate1 from 
this out mean to write all my longer    
poems for the stage1 and all my shorter 
ones for the ,psaltery1 if only some    
strong angel keep me to my good         
resolutions4  #aijb4     ,,magic   ,i   
,i believe in the practice and          
philosophy of what we have agreed to    
call magic1 in what ,i must call the    
evocation of spirits1 though ,i do not  
know what they are1 in the power of     
creating magical illusions1 in the      
visions of truth in the depths of the   
mind when the eyes are closed2 and ,i   
believe in three doctrines1 which have1 
as ,i think1 been handed down from early
 times1 and been the foundations of     
nearly all magical practices4 ,these    
doctrines are--  7#a7 ,that the borders 
of our minds are ever shifting1 and that
 many minds can flow into one another1  
as it were1 and create or reveal a      

single mind1 a single energy4  7#b7     
,that the borders of our memories are as
 shifting1 and that our memories are a  
part of one great memory1 the memory of 
,nature herself4  7#c7 ,that this great 
mind and great memory can be evoked by  
symbols4  ,i often think ,i would put   
this belief in magic from me if ,i      
could1 for ,i have come to see or to    
imagine1 in men and women1 in houses1 in
 handicrafts1 in nearly all sights and  
sounds1 a certain evil1 a certain       
ugliness1 that comes from the slow      
perishing through the centuries of a    
quality of mind that made this belief   
and its evidences common over the world4
   ,,ii  ,some ten or twelve years ago1 
a man with whom ,i have since quarrelled
 for sound reasons1 a very singular man 
who had given his life to studies other 
men despised1 asked me and an           
acquaintance1 who is now dead1 to       
witness a magical work4 ,he lived a     
little way from ,london1 and on the way 
my acquaintance told me that he did not 

believe in magic1 but that a novel of   
,bulwer ,lytton's had taken such a hold 
upon his imagination that he was going  
to give much of his time and all his    
thought to magic4 ,he longed to believe 
in it1 and had studied1 though not      
learnedly1 geomancy1 astrology1         
chiromancy1 and much cabalistic         
symbolism1 and yet doubted if the soul  
outlived the body4 ,he awaited the      
magical work full of scepticism4 ,he    
expected nothing more than an air of    
romance1 an illusion as of the stage1   
that might capture the consenting       
imagination for an hour4 ,the evoker of 
spirits and his beautiful wife received 
us in a little house1 on the edge of    
some kind of garden or park belonging to
 an eccentric rich man1 whose           
curiosities he arranged and dusted1 and 
he made his evocation in a long room    
that had a raised place on the floor at 
one end1 a kind of dais1 but was        
furnished meagrely and cheaply4 ,i sat  
with my acquaintance in the middle of   

the room1 and the evoker of spirits on  
the dais1 and his wife between us and   
him4 ,he held a wooden mace in his hand1
 and turning to a tablet of             
many-coloured squares1 with a number on 
each of the squares1 that stood near him
 on a chair1 he repeated a form of      
words4 ,almost at once my imagination   
began to move of itself and to bring    
before me vivid images that1 though     
never too vivid to be imagination1 as ,i
 had always understood it1 had yet a    
motion of their own1 a life ,i could not
 change or shape4 ,i remember seeing a  
number of white figures1 and wondering  
whether their mitred heads had been     
suggested by the mitred head of the     
mace1 and then1 of a sudden1 the image  
of my acquaintance in the midst of them4
 ,i told what ,i had seen1 and the      
evoker of spirits cried in a deep voice1
 ',let him be blotted out1' and as he   
said it the image of my acquaintance    
vanished1 and the evoker of spirits or  
his wife saw a man dressed in black with

 a curious square cap standing among the
 white figures4 ,it was my acquaintance1
 the seeress said1 as he had been in a  
past life1 the life that had moulded his
 present1 and that life would now unfold
 before us4 ,i too seemed to see the man
 with a strange vividness4 ,the story   
unfolded itself chiefly before the      
mind's eye of the seeress1 but sometimes
 ,i saw what she described before ,i    
heard her description4 ,she thought the 
man in black was perhaps a ,fleming of  
the sixteenth century1 and ,i could see 
him pass along narrow streets till he   
came to a narrow door with some rusty   
ironwork above it4 ,he went in1 and     
wishing to find out how far we had one  
vision among us1 ,i kept silent when ,i 
saw a dead body lying upon the table    
within the door4 ,the seeress described 
him going down a long hall and up into  
what she called a pulpit1 and beginning 
to speak4 ,she said1 ',he is a          
clergyman1 ,i can hear his words4 ,they 
sound like ,low ,dutch4' ,then after a  

little silence1 ',no1 ,i am wrong4 ,i   
can see the listeners2 he is a doctor   
lecturing among his pupils4' ,i said1   
',do you see anything near the door8'   
and she said1 ',yes1 ,i see a subject   
for dissection4' ,then we saw him go out
 again into the narrow streets1 ,i      
following the story of the seeress1     
sometimes merely following her words1   
but sometimes seeing for myself4 ,my    
acquaintance saw nothing2 ,i think he   
was forbidden to see1 it being his own  
life1 and ,i think could not in any     
case4 ,his imagination had no will of   
its own4 ,presently the man in black    
went into a house with two gables facing
 the road1 and up some stairs into a    
room where a hump-backed woman gave him 
a key2 and then along a corridor1 and   
down some stairs into a large cellar    
full of retorts and strange vessels of  
all kinds4 ,here he seemed to stay a    
long while1 and one saw him eating bread
 that he took down from a shelf4 ,the   
evoker of spirits and the seeress began 

to speculate about the man's character  
and habits1 and decided1 from a         
visionary impression1 that his mind was 
absorbed in naturalism1 but that his    
imagination had been excited by stories 
of the marvels wrought by magic in past 
times1 and that he was trying to copy   
them by naturalistic means4 ,presently  
one of them saw him go to a vessel that 
stood over a slow fire1 and take out of 
the vessel a thing wrapped up in        
numberless cloths1 which he partly      
unwrapped1 showing at length what looked
 like the image of a man made by        
somebody who could not model4 ,the      
evoker of spirits said that the man in  
black was trying to make flesh by       
chemical means1 and though he had not   
succeeded1 his brooding had drawn so    
many evil spirits about him1 that the   
image was partly alive4 ,he could see it
 moving a little where it lay upon a    
table4 ,at that moment ,i heard         
something like little squeals1 but kept 
silent1 as when ,i saw the dead body4   

,in a moment more the seeress said1 ',i 
hear little squeals4' ,then the evoker  
of spirits heard them1 but said1 ',they 
are not squeals2 he is pouring a red    
liquid out of a retort through a slit in
 the cloth2 the slit is over the mouth  
of the image and the liquid is gurgling 
in rather a curious way4' ,weeks seemed 
to pass by hurriedly1 and somebody saw  
the man still busy in his cellar4 ,then 
more weeks seemed to pass1 and now we   
saw him lying sick in a room up-stairs1 
and a man in a conical cap standing     
beside him4 ,we could see the image too4
 ,it was in the cellar1 but now it could
 move feebly about the floor4 ,i saw    
fainter images of the image passing     
continually from where it crawled to the
 man in his bed1 and ,i asked the evoker
 of spirits what they were4 ,he said1   
',they are the images of his terror4'   
,presently the man in the conical cap   
began to speak1 but who heard him ,i    
cannot remember4 ,he made the sick man  
get out of bed and walk1 leaning upon   

him1 and in much terror till they came  
to the cellar4 ,there the man in the    
conical cap made some symbol over the   
image1 which fell back as if asleep1 and
 putting a knife into the other's hand  
he said1 ',i have taken from it the     
magical life1 but you must take from it 
the life you gave4' ,somebody saw the   
sick man stoop and sever the head of the
 image from its body1 and then fall as  
if he had given himself a mortal wound1 
for he had filled it with his own life4 
,and then the vision changed and        
fluttered1 and he was lying sick again  
in the room up-stairs4 ,he seemed to lie
 there a long time with the man in the  
conical cap watching beside him1 and    
then1 ,i cannot remember how1 the evoker
 of spirits discovered that though he   
would in part recover1 he would never be
 well1 and that the story had got abroad
 in the town and shattered his good     
name4 ,his pupils had left him and men  
avoided him4 ,he was accursed4 ,he was a
 magician4  ,the story was finished1 and

 ,i looked at my acquaintance4 ,he was  
white and awestruck4 ,he said1 as nearly
 as ,i can remember1 ',all my life ,i   
have seen myself in dreams making a man 
by some means like that4 ,when ,i was a 
child ,i was always thinking out        
contrivances for galvanizing a corpse   
into life4' ,presently he said1         
',perhaps my bad health in this life    
comes from that experiment4' ,i asked if
 he had read ,frankenstein1 and he      
answered that he had4 ,he was the only  
one of us who had1 and he had taken no  
part in the vision4   ,,iii  ,then ,i   
asked to have some past life of mine    
revealed1 and a new evocation was made  
before the tablet full of little        
squares4 ,i cannot remember so well who 
saw this or that detail1 for now ,i was 
interested in little but the vision     
itself4 ,i had come to a conclusion     
about the method4 ,i knew that the      
vision may be in part common to several 
people4  ,a man in chain armour passed  
through a castle door1 and the seeress  

noticed with surprise the bareness and  
rudeness of castle rooms4 ,there was    
nothing of the magnificence or the      
pageantry she had expected4 ,the man    
came to a large hall and to a little    
chapel opening out of it1 where a       
ceremony was taking place4 ,there were  
six girls dressed in white1 who took    
from the altar some yellow object--,i   
thought it was gold1 for though1 like my
 acquaintance1 ,i was told not to see1  
,i could not help seeing4 ,somebody else
 thought that it was yellow flowers1 and
 ,i think the girls1 though ,i cannot   
remember clearly1 laid it between the   
man's hands4 ,he went out after a time1 
and as he passed through the great hall 
one of us1 ,i forget whom1 noticed that 
he passed over two gravestones4 ,then   
the vision became broken1 but presently 
he stood in a monk's habit among        
men-at-arms in the middle of a village  
reading from a parchment4 ,he was       
calling villagers about him1 and        
presently he and they and the           

men-at-arms took ship for some long     
voyage4 ,the vision became broken again1
 and when we could see clearly they had 
come to what seemed the ,holy ,land4    
,they had begun some kind of sacred     
labour among palm-trees4 ,the common men
 among them stood idle1 but the         
gentlemen carried large stones1 bringing
 them from certain directions1 from the 
cardinal points ,i think1 with a        
ceremonious formality4 ,the evoker of   
spirits said they must be making some   
kind of masonic house4 ,his mind1 like  
the minds of so many students of these  
hidden things1 was always running on    
masonry and discovering it in strange   
places4  ,we broke the vision that we   
might have supper1 breaking it with some
 form of words which ,i forget4 ,when   
supper had ended the seeress cried out  
that while we had been eating they had  
been building1 and they had built not a 
masonic house but a great stone cross4  
,and now they had all gone away but the 
man who had been in chain armour and two

 monks we had not noticed before4 ,he   
was standing against the cross1 his feet
 upon two stone rests a little above the
 ground1 and his arms spread out4 ,he   
seemed to stand there all day1 but when 
night came he went to a little cell1    
that was beside two other cells4 ,i     
think they were like the cells ,i have  
seen in the ,aran ,islands1 but ,i      
cannot be certain4 ,many days seemed to 
pass1 and all day every day he stood    
upon the cross1 and we never saw anybody
 there but him and the two monks4 ,many 
years seemed to pass1 making the vision 
flutter like a drift of leaves before   
our eyes1 and he grew old and           
white-haired1 and we saw the two monks1 
old and white-haired1 holding him upon  
the cross4 ,i asked the evoker of       
spirits why the man stood there1 and    
before he had time to answer ,i saw two 
people1 a man and a woman1 rising like a
 dream within a dream1 before the eyes  
of the man upon the cross4 ,the evoker  
of spirits saw them too1 and said that  

one of them held up his arms and they   
were without hands4 ,i thought of the   
two gravestones the man in chain mail   
had passed over in the great hall when  
he came out of the chapel1 and asked the
 evoker of spirits if the knight was    
undergoing a penance for violence1 and  
while ,i was asking him1 and he was     
saying that it might be so but he did   
not know1 the vision1 having completed  
its circle1 vanished4  ,it had not1 so  
far as ,i could see1 the personal       
significance of the other vision1 but it
 was certainly strange and beautiful1   
though ,i alone seemed to see its       
beauty4 ,who was it that made the story1
 if it were but a story8 ,i did not1 and
 the seeress did not1 and the evoker of 
spirits did not and could not4 ,it arose
 in three minds1 for ,i cannot remember 
my acquaintance taking any part1 and it 
rose without confusion1 and without     
labour1 except the labour of keeping the
 mind's eye awake1 and more swiftly than
 any pen could have written it out4 ,it 

may be1 as ,blake said of one of his    
poems1 that the author was in eternity4 
,in coming years ,i was to see and hear 
of many such visions1 and though ,i was 
not to be convinced1 though half        
convinced once or twice1 that they were 
old lives1 in an ordinary sense of the  
word life1 ,i was to learn that they    
have almost always some quite definite  
relation to dominant moods and moulding 
events in this life4 ,they are1 perhaps1
 in most cases1 though the vision ,i    
have but just described was not1 it     
seems1 among the cases1 symbolical      
histories of these moods and events1 or 
rather symbolical shadows of the        
impulses that have made them1 messages  
as it were out of the ancestral being of
 the questioner4  ,at the time these two
 visions meant little more to me1 if ,i 
can remember my feeling at the time1    
than a proof of the supremacy of        
imagination1 of the power of many minds 
to become one1 overpowering one another 
by spoken words and by unspoken thought 

till they have become a single intense1 
unhesitating energy4 ,one mind was      
doubtless the master1 ,i thought1 but   
all the minds gave a little1 creating or
 revealing for a moment what ,i must    
call a supernatural artist4   ,,iv      
,some years afterwards ,i was staying   
with some friends in ,paris4 ,i had got 
up before breakfast and gone out to buy 
a newspaper4 ,i had noticed the servant1
 a girl who had come from the country   
some years before1 laying the table for 
breakfast4 ,as ,i had passed her ,i had 
been telling myself one of those long   
foolish tales which one tells only to   
oneself4 ,if something had happened that
 had not happened1 ,i would have hurt my
 arm1 ,i thought4 ,i saw myself with my 
arm in a sling in the middle of some    
childish adventures4 ,i returned with   
the newspaper and met my host and       
hostess in the door4 ,the moment they   
saw me they cried out1 ',why1 the bonne 
has just told us you had your arm in a  
sling4 ,we thought something must have  

happened to you last night1 that you had
 been run over maybe'--or some such     
words4 ,i had been dining out at the    
other end of ,paris1 and had come in    
after everybody had gone to bed4 ,i had 
cast my imagination so strongly upon the
 servant that she had seen it1 and with 
what had appeared to be more than the   
mind's eye4  ,one afternoon1 about the  
same time1 ,i was thinking very intently
 of a certain fellow-student for whom ,i
 had a message1 which ,i hesitated about
 writing4 ,in a couple of days ,i got a 
letter from a place some hundreds of    
miles away where that student was4 ,on  
the afternoon when ,i had been thinking 
so intently ,i had suddenly appeared    
there amid a crowd of people in a hotel 
and as seeming solid as if in the flesh4
 ,my fellow-student had seen me1 but no 
one else1 and had asked me to come again
 when the people had gone4 ,i had       
vanished1 but had come again in the     
middle of the night and given the       
message4 ,i myself had no knowledge of  

casting an imagination upon one so far  
away4  ,i could tell of stranger images1
 of stranger enchantments1 of stranger  
imaginations1 cast consciously or       
unconsciously over as great distances by
 friends or by myself1 were it not that 
the greater energies of the mind seldom 
break forth but when the deeps are      
loosened4 ,they break forth amid events 
too private or too sacred for public    
speech1 or seem themselves1 ,i know not 
why1 to belong to hidden things4 ,i have
 written of these breakings forth1 these
 loosenings of the deep1 with some care 
and some detail1 but ,i shall keep my   
record shut4 ,after all1 one can but    
bear witness less to convince him who   
won't believe than to protect him who   
does1 as ,blake puts it1 enduring       
unbelief and misbelief and ridicule as  
best one may4 ,i shall be content to    
show that past times have believed as ,i
 do1 by quoting ,joseph ,glanvil's      
description of the ,scholar ,gipsy4     
,joseph ,glanvil is dead1 and will not  

mind unbelief and misbelief and         
ridicule4  ,the ,scholar ,gipsy1 too1 is
 dead1 unless indeed perfectly wise     
magicians can live till it please them  
to die1 and he is wandering somewhere1  
even if one cannot see him1 as ,arnold  
imagined1 'at some lone ale-house in the
 ,berkshire moors1 on the warm          
ingle-bench1' or 'crossing the stripling
 ,thames at ,bablock ,hithe1' 'trailing 
his fingers in the cool stream1' or     
'giving store of flowers--the           
frail-leaf'd white anemone1 dark        
hare-bells drenched with dew of summer  
eves1' to the girls 'who from the       
distant hamlets come to dance around the
 ,fyfield elm in ,may1' or 'sitting upon
 the river bank o'ergrown1' living on   
through time 'with a free onward        
impulse4' ,this is ,joseph ,glanvil's   
story--       ,there was very lately a  
lad in the ,university of ,oxford who1  
being of      very pregnant and ready   
parts and yet wanting the encouragement 
of      preferment1 was by his poverty  

forced to leave his studies there1 and  
to cast himself upon the wide world for 
a livelihood4 ,now his      necessities 
growing daily on him1 and wanting the   
help of friends to      relieve him1 he 
was at last forced to join himself to a 
company of      vagabond gipsies1 whom  
occasionally he met with1 and to follow 
their      trade for a maintenance4444  
,after he had been a pretty while well  
exercised in the trade1 there chanced to
 ride by a couple of      scholars1 who 
had formerly been of his acquaintance4  
,the scholar had      quickly spied out 
these old friends among the gipsies1 and
 their      amazement to see him among  
such society had well-nigh discovered   
him2      but by a sign he prevented    
them owning him before that crew1 and   
taking one of them aside privately1     
desired him with his friend to go       
to an inn1 not far distant1 promising   
there to come to them4 ,they            
accordingly went thither and he follows3
 after their first salutation      his  

friends inquire how he came to lead so  
odd a life as that was1      and so     
joined himself into such a beggarly     
company4 ,the scholar gipsy      having 
given them an account of the necessity  
which drove him to that      kind of    
life1 told them that the people he went 
with were not such      impostors as    
they were taken for1 but that they had a
 traditional      kind of learning among
 them and could do wonders by the power 
of      imagination1 and that himself   
had learned much of their art and       
improved it further than themselves     
could4 ,and to evince the truth of      
what he told them1 he said he'd remove  
into another room1 leaving      them to 
discourse together2 and upon his return 
tell them the sense      of what they   
had talked of2 which accordingly he     
performed1 giving      them a full      
account of what had passed between them 
in his absence4      ,the scholars being
 amazed at so unexpected a discovery1   
earnestly      desired him to unriddle  

the mystery4 ,in which he gave them     
satisfaction1 by telling them that what 
he did was by the power of              
imagination1 his phantasy leading       
theirs2 and that himself had            
dictated to them the discourse they had 
held together while he was      from    
them2 that there were warrantable ways  
of heightening the      imagination to  
that pitch as to bend another's1 and    
that when he had      compassed the     
whole secret1 some parts of which he was
 yet ignorant      of1 he intended to   
leave their company and give the world  
an account      of what he had learned4 
,if all who have described events like  
this have not dreamed1 we should rewrite
 our histories1 for all men1 certainly  
all imaginative men1 must be for ever   
casting forth enchantments1 glamours1   
illusions2 and all men1 especially      
tranquil men who have no powerful       
egotistic life1 must be continually     
passing under their power4 ,our most    
elaborate thoughts1 elaborate purposes1 

precise emotions1 are often1 as ,i      
think1 not really ours1 but have on a   
sudden come up1 as it were1 out of hell 
or down out of heaven4 ,the historian   
should remember1 should he not8 angels  
and devils not less than kings and      
soldiers1 and plotters and thinkers4    
,what matter if the angel or devil1 as  
indeed certain old writers believed1    
first wrapped itself with an organized  
shape in some man's imagination8 what   
matter 'if ,god himself only acts or is 
in existing beings or men1' as ,blake   
believed8 we must none the less admit   
that invisible beings1 far wandering    
influences1 shapes that may have floated
 from a hermit of the wilderness1 brood 
over council-chambers and studies and   
battle-fields4 ,we should never be      
certain that it was not some woman      
treading in the wine-press who began    
that subtle change in men's minds1 that 
powerful movement of thought and        
imagination about which so many ,germans
 have written2 or that the passion1     

because of which so many countries were 
given to the sword1 did not begin in the
 mind of some shepherd boy1 lighting up 
his eyes for a moment before it ran upon
 its way4   ,v  ,we cannot doubt that   
barbaric people receive such influences 
more visibly and obviously1 and in all  
likelihood more easily and fully than we
 do1 for our life in cities1 which      
deafens or kills the passive meditative 
life1 and our education that enlarges   
the separated1 self-moving mind1 have   
made our souls less sensitive4 ,our     
souls that were once naked to the winds 
of heaven are now thickly clad1 and have
 learned to build a house and light a   
fire upon its hearth1 and shut to the   
doors and windows4 ,the winds can1      
indeed1 make us draw near to the fire1  
or can even lift the carpet and whistle 
under the door1 but they could do worse 
out on the plains long ago4 ,a certain  
learned man1 quoted by ,mr4 ,lang in his
 ,making of ,religion1 contends that the
 memories of primitive man and his      

thoughts of distant places must have had
 the intensity of hallucination1 because
 there was nothing in his mind to draw  
his attention away from them--an        
explanation that does not seem to me    
complete--and ,mr4 ,lang goes on to     
quote certain travellers to prove that  
savages live always on the edges of     
vision4 ,one ,laplander who wished to   
become a ,christian1 and thought visions
 but heathenish1 confessed to a         
traveller1 to whom he had given a minute
 account of many distant events1 read   
doubtless in that traveller's mind1     
'that he knew not how to make use of his
 eyes1 since things altogether distant  
were present to them4' ,i myself could  
find in one district in ,galway but one 
man who had not seen what ,i can but    
call spirits1 and he was in his dotage4 
',there is no man mowing a meadow but   
sees them at one time or another1' said 
a man in a different district4  ,if ,i  
can unintentionally cast a glamour1 an  
enchantment1 over persons of our own    

time who have lived for years in great  
cities1 there is no reason to doubt that
 men could cast intentionally a far     
stronger enchantment1 a far stronger    
glamour1 over the more sensitive people 
of ancient times1 or that men can still 
do so where the old order of life       
remains unbroken4 ,why should not the   
,scholar ,gipsy cast his spell over his 
friends8 ,why should not ,st4 ,patrick1 
or he of whom the story was first told1 
pass his enemies1 he and all his        
clerics1 as a herd of deer8 ,why should 
not enchanters like him in the ,morte   
d',arthur make troops of horse seem but 
grey stones8 ,why should not the ,roman 
soldiers1 though they came of a         
civilization which was ceasing to be    
sensitive to these things1 have trembled
 for a moment before the enchantments of
 the ,druids of ,mona8 ,why should not  
the ,jesuit father1 or the ,count ,saint
 ,germain1 or whoever the tale was first
 told of1 have really seemed to leave   
the city in a coach and four by all the 

,twelve ,gates at once8 ,why should not 
,moses and the enchanters of ,pharaoh   
have made their staffs as the medicine  
men of many primitive peoples make their
 pieces of old rope seem like devouring 
serpents8 ,why should not that medival  
enchanter have made summer and all its  
blossoms seem to break forth in middle  
winter8  ,may we not learn some day to  
rewrite our histories1 when they touch  
upon these things too8  ,men who are    
imaginative writers to-day may well have
 preferred to influence the imagination 
of others more directly in past times4  
,instead of learning their craft with   
paper and a pen they may have sat for   
hours imagining themselves to be stocks 
and stones and beasts of the wood1 till 
the images were so vivid that the       
passers-by became but a part of the     
imagination of the dreamer1 and wept or 
laughed or ran away as he would have    
them4 ,have not poetry and music arisen1
 as it seems1 out of the sounds the     
enchanters made to help their           

imagination to enchant1 to charm1 to    
bind with a spell themselves and the    
passers-by8 ,these very words1 a chief  
part of all praises of music or poetry1 
still cry to us their origin4 ,and just 
as the musician or the poet enchants and
 charms and binds with a spell his own  
mind when he would enchant the mind of  
others1 so did the enchanter create or  
reveal for himself as well as for others
 the supernatural artist or genius1 the 
seeming transitory mind made out of many
 minds1 whose work ,i saw1 or thought ,i
 saw1 in that suburban house4 ,he kept  
the doors too1 as it seems1 of those    
less transitory minds1 the genius of the
 family1 the genius of the tribe1 or it 
may be1 when he was mighty-souled       
enough1 the genius of the world4 ,our   
history speaks of opinions and          
discoveries1 but in ancient times when1 
as ,i think1 men had their eyes ever    
upon those doors1 history spoke of      
commandments and revelations4 ,they     
looked as carefully and as patiently    

towards ,sinai and its thunders as we   
look towards parliaments and            
laboratories4 ,we are always praising   
men in whom the individual life has come
 to perfection1 but they were always    
praising the one mind1 their foundation 
of all perfection4   ,,vi  ,i once saw a
 young ,irish woman1 fresh from a       
convent school1 cast into a profound    
trance1 though not by a method known to 
any hypnotist4 ,in her waking state she 
thought the apple of ,eve was the kind  
of apple you can buy at the             
greengrocer's1 but in her trance she saw
 the ,tree of ,life with ever-sighing   
souls moving in its branches instead of 
sap1 and among its leaves all the fowl  
of the air1 and on its highest bough one
 white fowl bearing a crown4 ,when ,i   
went home ,i took from the shelf a      
translation of ,the ,book of ,concealed 
,mystery1 an old ,jewish book1 and      
cutting the pages came upon this        
passage1 which ,i cannot think ,i had   
ever read3 ',the ,tree1 444 is the ,tree

 of the ,knowledge of ,good and of ,evil
 444 in its branches the birds lodge and
 build their nests1 the souls and the   
angels have their place4'  ,i once saw a
 young ,church of ,ireland man1 a bank  
clerk in the west of ,ireland1 thrown in
 a like trance4 ,i have no doubt that   
he1 too1 was quite certain that the     
apple of ,eve was a greengrocer's apple1
 and yet he saw the tree and heard the  
souls sighing through its branches1 and 
saw apples with human faces1 and laying 
his ear to an apple heard a sound as of 
fighting hosts within4 ,presently he    
strayed from the tree and came to the   
edge of ,eden1 and there he found       
himself not by the wilderness he had    
learned of at the ,sunday-school1 but   
upon the summit of a great mountain1 of 
a mountain 'two miles high4' ,the whole 
summit1 in contradiction to all that    
would have seemed probable to his waking
 mind1 was a great walled garden4 ,some 
years afterwards ,i found a medival     
diagram1 which pictured ,eden as a      

walled garden upon a high mountain4     
,where did these intricate symbols come 
from8 ,neither ,i nor the one or two    
people present or the seers had ever    
seen1 ,i am convinced1 the description  
in ,the ,book of ,concealed ,mystery1 or
 the medival diagram4 ,remember that the
 images appeared in a moment perfect in 
all their complexity4 ,if one can       
imagine that the seers or that ,i myself
 or another had indeed read of these    
images and forgotten it1 that the       
supernatural artist's knowledge of what 
was in our buried memories accounted for
 these visions1 there are numberless    
other visions to account for4 ,one      
cannot go on believing in improbable    
knowledge for ever4 ,for instance1 ,i   
find in my diary that on ,december #bg1 
#ahig1 a seer1 to whom ,i had given a   
certain old ,irish symbol1 saw ,brigit1 
the goddess1 holding out 'a glittering  
and wriggling serpent1' and yet ,i feel 
certain that neither ,i nor he knew     
anything of her association with the    

serpent until ,carmina ,gadelica was    
published a few months ago4 ,and an old 
,irish woman who can neither read nor   
write has described to me a woman       
dressed like ,dian1 with helmet1 and    
short skirt and sandals1 and what seemed
 to be buskins4 ,why1 too1 among all the
 countless stories of visions that ,i   
have gathered in ,ireland1 or that a    
friend has gathered for me1 are there   
none that mix the dress of different    
periods8 ,the seers when they are but   
speaking from tradition will mix        
everything together1 and speak of ,finn 
mac ,cool going to the ,assizes at      
,cork4 ,almost every one who has ever   
busied himself with such matters has    
come1 in trance or dream1 upon some new 
and strange symbol or event1 which he   
has afterwards found in some work he had
 never read or heard of4 ,examples like 
this are as yet too little classified1  
too little analyzed1 to convince the    
stranger1 but some of them are proof    
enough for those they have happened to1 

proof that there is a memory of nature  
that reveals events and symbols of      
distant centuries4 ,mystics of many     
countries and many centuries have spoken
 of this memory2 and the honest men and 
charlatans1 who keep the magical        
traditions which will some day be       
studied as a part of folk-lore1 base    
most that is of importance in their     
claims upon this memory4 ,i have read of
 it in ',paracelsus' and in some ,indian
 book that describes the people of past 
days as still living within it1         
',thinking the thought and doing the    
deed4' ,and ,i have found it in the     
prophetic books of ,william ,blake1 who 
calls its images 'the bright sculptures 
of ,los's ,halls'2 and says that all    
events1 'all love stories1' renew       
themselves from those images4 ,it is    
perhaps well that so few believe in it1 
for if many did many would go out of    
parliaments and universities and        
libraries and run into the wilderness to
 so waste the body1 and to so hush the  

unquiet mind that1 still living1 they   
might pass the doors the dead pass      
daily2 for who among the wise would     
trouble himself with making laws or in  
writing history or in weighing the earth
 if the things of eternity seemed ready 
to hand8   ,,vii  ,i find in my diary of
 magical events for #ahii that ,i awoke 
at #c ,a4,m4 out of a nightmare1 and    
imagined one symbol to prevent its      
recurrence1 and imagined another1 a     
simple geometrical form1 which calls up 
dreams of luxuriant vegetable life1 that
 ,i might have pleasant dreams4 ,i      
imagined it faintly1 being very sleepy1 
and went to sleep4 ,i had confused      
dreams which seemed to have no relation 
with the symbol4 ,i awoke about eight1  
having for the time forgotten both      
nightmare and symbol4 ,presently ,i     
dozed off again and began half to dream 
and half to see1 as one does between    
sleep and waking1 enormous flowers and  
grapes4 ,i awoke and recognized that    
what ,i had dreamed or seen was the kind

 of thing appropriate to the symbol     
before ,i remembered having used it4 ,i 
find another record1 though made some   
time after the event1 of having imagined
 over the head of a person1 who was a   
little of a seer1 a combined symbol of  
elemental air and elemental water4 ,this
 person1 who did not know what symbol ,i
 was using1 saw a pigeon flying with a  
lobster in his bill4 ,i find that on    
,december #ac1 #ahih1 ,i used a certain 
star-shaped symbol with a seeress1      
getting her to look at it intently      
before she began seeing4 ,she saw a     
rough stone house1 and in the middle of 
the house the skull of a horse4 ,i find 
that ,i had used the same symbol a few  
days before with a seer1 and that he had
 seen a rough stone house1 and in the   
middle of the house something under a   
cloth marked with the ,hammer of ,thor4 
,he had lifted the cloth and discovered 
a skeleton of gold with teeth of        
diamonds1 and eyes of some unknown dim  
precious stones4 ,i had made a note to  

this last vision1 pointing out that we  
had been using a ,solar symbol a little 
earlier4 ,solar symbols often call up   
visions of gold and precious stones4 ,i 
do not give these examples to prove my  
arguments1 but to illustrate them4 ,i   
know that my examples will awaken in all
 who have not met the like1 or who are  
not on other grounds inclined towards my
 arguments1 a most natural incredulity4 
,it was long before ,i myself would     
admit an inherent power in symbols1 for 
it long seemed to me that one could     
account for everything by the power of  
one imagination over another1 telepathy 
as it is called with that separation of 
knowledge and life1 of word and emotion1
 which is the sterility of scientific   
speech4 ,the symbol seemed powerful1 ,i 
thought1 merely because we thought it   
powerful1 and we would do just as well  
without it4 ,in those days ,i used      
symbols made with some ingenuity instead
 of merely imagining them4 ,i used to   
give them to the person ,i was          

experimenting with1 and tell him to hold
 them to his forehead without looking at
 them2 and sometimes ,i made a mistake4 
,i learned from these mistakes that if  
,i did not myself imagine the symbol1 in
 which case he would have a mixed       
vision1 it was the symbol ,i gave by    
mistake that produced the vision4 ,then 
,i met with a seer who could say to me1 
',i have a vision of a square pond1 but 
,i can see your thought1 and you expect 
me to see an oblong pond1' or1 ',the    
symbol you are imagining has made me see
 a woman holding a crystal1 but it was a
 moonlight sea ,i should have seen4' ,i 
discovered that the symbol hardly ever  
failed to call up its typical scene1 its
 typical event1 its typical person1 but 
that ,i could practically never call up1
 no matter how vividly ,i imagined it1  
the particular scene1 the particular    
event1 the particular person ,i had in  
my own mind1 and that when ,i could1 the
 two visions rose side by side4  ,i     
cannot now think symbols less than the  

greatest of all powers whether they are 
used consciously by the masters of      
magic1 or half unconsciously by their   
successors1 the poet1 the musician and  
the artist4 ,at first ,i tried to       
distinguish between symbols and symbols1
 between what ,i called inherent symbols
 and arbitrary symbols1 but the         
distinction has come to mean little or  
nothing4 ,whether their power has arisen
 out of themselves1 or whether it has an
 arbitrary origin1 matters little1 for  
they act1 as ,i believe1 because the    
great memory associates them with       
certain events and moods and persons4   
,whatever the passions of man have      
gathered about1 becomes a symbol in the 
great memory1 and in the hands of him   
who has the secret1 it is a worker of   
wonders1 a caller-up of angels or of    
devils4 ,the symbols are of all kinds1  
for everything in heaven or earth has   
its association1 momentous or trivial1  
in the great memory1 and one never knows
 what forgotten events may have plunged 

it1 like the toadstool and the ragweed1 
into the great passions4 ,knowledgeable 
men and women in ,ireland sometimes     
distinguish between the simples that    
work cures by some medical property in  
the herb1 and those that do their work  
by magic4 ,such magical simples as the  
husk of the flax1 water out of the fork 
of an elm-tree1 do their work1 as ,i    
think1 by awaking in the depths of the  
mind where it mingles with the great    
mind1 and is enlarged by the great      
memory1 some curative energy1 some      
hypnotic command4 ,they are not what we 
call faith cures1 for they have been    
much used and successfully1 the         
traditions of all lands affirm1 over    
children and over animals1 and to me    
they seem the only medicine that could  
have been committed safely to ancient   
hands4 ,to pluck the wrong leaf would   
have been to go uncured1 but1 if one had
 eaten it1 one might have been poisoned4
   ,,viii  ,i have now described that   
belief in magic which has set me all but

 unwilling among those lean and fierce  
minds who are at war with their time1   
who cannot accept the days as they pass1
 simply and gladly2 and ,i look at what 
,i have written with some alarm1 for ,i 
have told more of the ancient secret    
than many among my fellow-students think
 it right to tell4 ,i have come to      
believe so many strange things because  
of experience1 that ,i see little reason
 to doubt the truth of many things that 
are beyond my experience2 and it may be 
that there are beings who watch over    
that ancient secret1 as all tradition   
affirms1 and resent1 and perhaps avenge1
 too fluent speech4 ,they say in the    
,aran ,islands that if you speak        
overmuch of the things of ,faery your   
tongue becomes like a stone1 and it     
seems to me1 though doubtless           
naturalistic reason would call it       
,auto-suggestion or the like1 that ,i   
have often felt my tongue become just so
 heavy and clumsy4 ,more than once1 too1
 as ,i wrote this very essay ,i have    

become uneasy1 and have torn up some    
paragraph1 not for any literary reason1 
but because some incident or some symbol
 that would perhaps have meant nothing  
to the reader1 seemed1 ,i know not why1 
to belong to hidden things4 ,yet ,i must
 write or be of no account to any cause1
 good or evil2 ,i must commit what      
merchandise of wisdom ,i have to this   
ship of written speech1 and after all1  
,i have many a time watched it put out  
to sea with not less alarm when all the 
speech was rhyme4 ,we who write1 we who 
bear witness1 must often hear our hearts
 cry out against us1 complaining because
 of their hidden things1 and ,i know not
 but he who speaks of wisdom may not    
sometimes in the change that is coming  
upon the world1 have to fear the anger  
of the people of ,faery1 whose country  
is the heart of the world--',the ,land  
of the ,living ,heart4' ,who can keep   
always to the little pathway between    
speech and silence1 where one meets none
 but discreet revelations8 ,and surely1 

at whatever risk1 we must cry out that  
imagination is always seeking to remake 
the world according to the impulses and 
the patterns in that great ,mind1 and   
that great ,memory8 ,can there be       
anything so important as to cry out that
 what we call romance1 poetry1          
intellectual beauty1 is the only signal 
that the supreme ,enchanter1 or some one
 in ,his councils1 is speaking of what  
has been1 and shall be again1 in the    
consummation of time8  #aija4     ,,the 
,,happiest ,,of ,,the ,,poets   ,i      
,rossetti in one of his letters numbers 
his favourite colours in the order of   
his favour1 and throughout his work one 
feels that he loved form and colour for 
themselves and apart from what they     
represent4 ,one feels sometimes that he 
desired a world of essences1 of unmixed 
powers1 of impossible purities4 ,it is  
as though the last judgment had already 
begun in his mind and that the essences 
and powers1 which the divine hand had   
mixed into one another to make the loam 

of life1 fell asunder at his touch4 ,if 
he painted a flame or a blue distance1  
he painted as though he had seen the    
flame out of whose heart all flames had 
been taken1 or the blue of the abyss    
that was before all life2 and if he     
painted a woman's face he painted it in 
some moment of intensity when the       
ecstasy of the lover and of the saint   
are alike1 and desire becomes wisdom    
without ceasing to be desire4 ,he       
listens to the cry of the flesh till it 
becomes proud and passes beyond the     
world where some immense desire that the
 intellect cannot understand mixes with 
the desire of a body's warmth and       
softness4 ,his genius like ,shelley's   
can hardly stir but to the rejection of 
nature1 whose delight is profusion1 but 
never intensity1 and like ,shelley's it 
follows the ,star of the ,magi1 the     
,morning and ,evening ,star1 the mother 
of impossible hope1 although it follows 
through deep woods1 where the ,star     
glimmers among dew-drenched boughs and  

not through 'a wind-swept valley of the 
,apennine4' ,men like him cannot be     
happy as we understand happiness1 for to
 be happy one must delight like nature  
in mere profusion1 in mere abundance1 in
 making and doing things1 and if one    
sets an image of the perfect before one 
it must be the image that draws her     
perpetually1 the image of a perfect     
fulness of natural life1 of an ,earthly 
,paradise4 ,one's emotion must never    
break the bonds of life1 one's hands    
must never labour to loosen the silver  
cord1 one's ears must never strain to   
catch the sound of ,michael's trumpet4  
,that is to say1 one must not be among  
those that would have prayed in old     
times in some chapel of the ,star1 but  
among those who would have prayed under 
the shadow of the ,green ,tree1 and on  
the wet stones of the ,well1 among the  
worshippers of natural abundance4   ,,ii
  ,i do not think it was accident1 so   
subtle are the threads that lead the    
soul1 that made ,william ,morris1 who   

seems to me the one perfectly happy and 
fortunate poet of modern times1         
celebrate the ,green ,tree and the      
goddess ,habundia1 and wells and        
enchanted waters in so many books4 ,in  
,the ,well at the ,world's ,end green   
trees and enchanted waters are shown to 
us1 as they were understood by old      
writers1 who thought that the generation
 of all things was through water2 for   
when the water that gives a long and a  
fortunate life and that can be found by 
none but such a one as all women love is
 found at last1 the ,dry ,tree1 the     
image of the ruined land1 becomes green4
 ,to him indeed as to older writers     
,well and ,tree are all but images of   
the one thing1 of an 'energy' that is   
not the less 'eternal delight' because  
it is half of the body4 ,he never wrote1
 and could not have written1 of a man or
 woman who was not of the kin of ,well  
or ,tree4 ,long before he had named     
either he had made his ',wanderers'     
follow a dream indeed1 but a dream of   

natural happiness1 and all the people of
 all his poems and stories from the     
confused beginning of his art in ,the   
,hollow ,land to its end in ,the        
,sundering ,flood1 are full of the heavy
 sweetness of this dream4 ,he wrote     
indeed of nothing but of the quest of   
the ,grail1 but it was the ,heathen     
,grail that gave every man his chosen   
food1 and not the ,grail of ,malory or  
,wagner2 and he came at last to praise1 
as other men have praised the martyrs of
 religion or of passion1 men with lucky 
eyes and men whom all women love4  ,we  
know so little of man and of the world  
that we cannot be certain that the same 
invisible hands1 that gave him an       
imagination preoccupied with good       
fortune1 gave him also health and       
wealth1 and the power to create         
beautiful things without labour1 that he
 might honour the ,green ,tree4 ,it     
pleases me to imagine the copper mine   
which brought1 as ,mr4 ,mackail has     
told1 so much unforeseen wealth and in  

so astonishing a way1 as no less        
miraculous than the three arrows in ,the
 ,sundering ,flood4 ,no mighty poet in  
his misery dead could have delighted    
enough to make us delight in men 'who   
knew no vain desire of foolish fame1'   
but who thought the dance upon 'the     
stubble field' and 'the battle with the 
earth' better than 'the bitter war'     
'where right and wrong are mixed        
together4' ',oh the trees1 the trees6'  
he wrote in one of his early letters1   
and it was his work to make us1 who had 
been taught to sympathize with the      
unhappy till we had grown morbid1 to    
sympathize with men and women who turned
 everything into happiness because they 
had in them something of the abundance  
of the beechen boughs or of the bursting
 wheat-ear4 ,he alone1 ,i think1 has    
told the story of ,alcestis with perfect
 sympathy for ,admetus1 with so perfect 
a sympathy that he cannot persuade      
himself that one so happy died at all2  
and he1 unlike all other poets1 has     

delighted to tell us that the men after 
his own heart1 the men of his ,news from
 ,nowhere1 sorrowed but a little while  
over unhappy love4 ,he cannot even think
 of nobility and happiness apart1 for   
all his people are like his men of ,burg
 ,dale who lived 'in much plenty and    
ease of life1 though not delicately or  
desiring things out of measure4 ,they   
wrought with their hands and wearied    
themselves2 and they rested from their  
toil and feasted and were merry2        
to-morrow was not a burden to them1 nor 
yesterday a thing which they would fain 
forget2 life shamed them not nor did    
death make them afraid4 ,as for the     
,dale wherein they dwelt1 it was indeed 
most fair and lovely and they deemed it 
the ,blessing of the earth1 and they    
trod the flowery grass beside its       
rippled stream amidst the green         
tree-boughs proudly and joyfully with   
goodly bodies and merry hearts4'   ,,iii
  ,i think of his men as with broad     
brows and golden beards and mild eyes   

and tranquil speech1 and of his good    
women as like ',the ,bride' in whose    
face ,rossetti saw and painted for once 
the abundance of earth and not the      
half-hidden light of his star4 ,they are
 not in love with love for its own sake1
 with a love that is apart from the     
world or at enmity with it1 as          
,swinburne imagines ,mary ,stuart and as
 all men have imagined ,helen4 ,they do 
not seek in love that ecstasy1 which    
,shelley's nightingale called death1    
that extremity of life in which life    
seems to pass away like the ,phoenix in 
flame of its own lighting1 but rather a 
gentle self-surrender that would lose   
more than half its sweetness if it lost 
the savour of coming days4 ,they are    
good house-wives2 they sit often at the 
embroidery frame1 and they have wisdom  
in flocks and herds and they are before 
all fruitful mothers4 ,it seems at times
 as if their love was less a passion for
 one man out of the world than          
submission to the hazard of destiny1 and

 the hope of motherhood and the innocent
 desire of the body4 ,they accept       
changes and chances of life as gladly as
 they accept spring and summer and      
autumn and winter1 and because they have
 sat under the shadow of the ,green     
,tree and drunk the ,waters of          
,abundance out of their hollow hands1   
the barren blossoms do not seem to them 
the most beautiful4 ,when ,habundia     
takes the shape of ,birdalone she comes 
first as a young naked girl standing    
among great trees1 and then as an old   
carline1 ,birdalone in stately old age4 
,and when she praises ,birdalone's naked
 body1 and speaks of the desire it shall
 awaken1 praise and desire are innocent 
because they would not break the links  
that chain the days to one another4 ,the
 desire seems not other than the desire 
of the bird for its mate in the heart of
 the wood1 and we listen to that joyous 
praise as though a bird watching its    
plumage in still water had begun to sing
 in its joy1 or as if we heard hawk     

praising hawk in the middle air1 and    
because it is the praise of one made for
 all noble life and not for pleasure    
only1 it seems1 though it is the praise 
of the body1 that it is the noblest     
praise4  ,birdalone has never seen her  
image but in 'a broad latten-dish1' so  
the wood woman must tell her of her body
 and praise it4  ',thus it is with thee2
 thou standest before me a tall and slim
 maiden1 somewhat thin as befitteth thy 
seventeen summers2 where thy flesh is   
bare of wont1 as thy throat and thine   
arms and thy legs from the middle down1 
it is tanned a beauteous colour1 but    
otherwhere it is even as fair a white1  
wholesome and clean as if the golden    
sunlight which fulfilleth the promise of
 the earth were playing therein4444     
,delicate and clean-made is the little  
trench that goeth from thy mouth to thy 
lips1 and sweet it is1 and there is more
 might in it than in sweet words spoken4
 ,thy lips they are of the finest       
fashion1 yet rather thin than full2 and 

some would not have it so2 but ,i would1
 whereas ,i see therein a sign of thy   
valiancy and friendliness4 ,surely he   
who did thy carven chin had a mind to a 
master work and did no less4 ,great was 
the deftness of thine imaginer1 and he  
would have all folk who see thee wonder 
at thy deep thinking and thy carefulness
 and thy kindness4 ,ah1 maiden6 is it so
 that thy thoughts are ever deep and    
solemn8 ,yet at least ,i know it of thee
 that they be hale and true and sweet4  
',my friend1 when thou hast a mirror1   
some of all this shalt thou see1 but not
 all2 and when thou hast a lover some   
deal wilt thou hear1 but not all4 ,but  
now thy she-friend may tell it thee all1
 if she have eyes to see it1 as have ,i2
 whereas no man could say so much of    
thee before the mere love should        
overtake him1 and turn his speech into  
the folly of love and the madness of    
desire4'  ,all his good women1 whether  
it is ,dana in her tower1 or that woman 
in ,the ,wood beyond the ,world who can 

make the withered flowers in her girdle 
grow young again by the touch of her    
hand1 are of the kin of the wood woman4 
,all his bad women too and his half-bad 
women are of her kin4 ,the evils their  
enchantments make are a disordered      
abundance like that of weedy places and 
they are cruel as wild creatures are    
cruel and they have unbridled desires4  
,one finds these evils in their typical 
shape in that isle of the ,wondrous     
,isles1 where the wicked witch has her  
pleasure-house and her prison1 and in   
that 'isle of the old and the young1'   
where until her enchantment is broken   
second childhood watches over children  
who never grow old and who seem to the  
bystander who knows their story 'like   
images' or like 'the rabbits on the     
grass4' ,it is as though ,nature spoke  
through him at all times in the mood    
that is upon her when she is opening the
 apple-blossom or reddening the apple or
 thickening the shadow of the boughs1   
and that the men and women of his verse 

and of his stories are all the ministers
 of her mood4   ,,iv  ,when ,i was a    
child ,i often heard my elders talking  
of an old turreted house where an old   
great-uncle of mine lived1 and of its   
gardens and its long pond where there   
was an island with tame eagles2 and one 
day somebody read me some verses and    
said they made him think of that old    
house where he had been very happy4 ,the
 verses ran in my head for years and    
became to me the best description of    
happiness in the world1 and ,i am not   
certain that ,i know a better even now4 
,they were those first dozen verses of  
,golden ,wings that begin--    ',midways
 of a walled garden      ,in the happy  
poplar land      ,did an ancient castle 
stand1   ,with an old knight for a      
warden4    ,many scarlet bricks there   
were      ,in its walls1 and old grey   
stone2      ,over which red apples shone
   ,at the right time of the year4      
,on the bricks the green moss grew1     
,yellow lichen on the stone1      ,over 

which red apples shone2   ,little war   
that castle knew4'  ,when ,william      
,morris describes a house of any kind1  
and makes his description poetical1 it  
is always1 ,i think1 some house that he 
would have liked to have lived in1 and  
,i remember him saying about the time   
when he was writing of that great house 
of the ,wolfings1 ',i decorate modern   
houses for people1 but the house that   
would please me would be some great room
 where one talked to one's friends in   
one corner and eat in another and slept 
in another and worked in another4'      
,indeed all he writes seems to me like  
the make-believe of a child who is      
remaking the world1 not always in the   
same way1 but always after its own      
heart2 and so unlike all other modern   
writers he makes his poetry out of      
unending pictures of a happiness that is
 often what a child might imagine1 and  
always a happiness that sets mind and   
body at ease4 ,now it is a picture of   
some great room full of merriment1 now  

of the wine-press1 now of the golden    
threshing-floor1 now of an old mill     
among apple-trees1 now of cool water    
after the heat of the sun1 now of some  
well-sheltered1 well-tilled place among 
woods or mountains1 where men and women 
live happily1 knowing of nothing that is
 too far off or too great for the       
affections4 ,he has but one story to    
tell us1 how some man or woman lost and 
found again the happiness that is always
 half of the body2 and even when they   
are wandering from it1 leaves must fall 
over them1 and flowers make fragrances  
about them1 and warm winds fan them1 and
 birds sing to them1 for being of       
,habundia's kin they must not forget the
 shadow of her ,green ,tree even for a  
moment1 and the waters of her ,well must
 be always wet upon their sandals4 ,his 
poetry often wearies us as the unbroken 
green of ,july wearies us1 for there is 
something in us1 some bitterness because
 of the ,fall it may be1 that takes a   
little from the sweetness of ,eve's     

apple after the first mouthful2 but he  
who did all things gladly and easily1   
who never knew the curse of labour1     
found it always as sweet as it was in   
,eve's mouth4 ,all kinds of associations
 have gathered about the pleasant things
 of the world and half taken the        
pleasure out of them for the greater    
number of men1 but he saw them as when  
they came from the ,divine ,hand4 ,i    
often see him in my mind as ,i saw him  
once at ,hammersmith holding up a glass 
of claret towards the light and saying1 
',why do people say it is prosaic to get
 inspiration out of wine8 ,is it not the
 sunlight and the sap in the leaves8    
,are not grapes made by the sunlight and
 the sap8'   ,v  ,in one of his little  
socialist pamphlets he tells how he sat 
under an elm-tree and watched the       
starlings and thought of an old horse   
and an old labourer that had passed him 
by1 and of the men and women he had seen
 in towns2 and he wondered how all these
 had come to be as they were4 ,he saw   

that the starlings were beautiful and   
merry and that men and the old horse    
they had subdued to their service were  
ugly and miserable1 and yet the         
starlings1 he thought1 were of one kind 
whether there or in the south of        
,england1 and the ugly men and women    
were of one kind with those whose       
nobility and beauty had moved the       
ancient sculptors and poets to imagine  
the gods and the heroes after the images
 of men4 ,then he began1 he tells us1 to
 meditate how this great difference     
might be ended and a new life1 which    
would permit men to have beauty in      
common among them as the starlings have1
 be built on the wrecks of the old life4
 ,in other words1 his mind was          
illuminated from within and lifted into 
prophecy in the full right sense of the 
word1 and he saw the natural things he  
was alone gifted to see in their perfect
 form2 and having that faith which is   
alone worth having1 for it includes all 
others1 a sure knowledge established in 

the constitution of his mind that       
perfect things are final things1 he     
announced that all he had seen would    
come to pass4 ,i do not think he        
troubled to understand books of         
economics1 and ,mr4 ,mackail says1 ,i   
think1 that they vexed him and wearied  
him4 ,he found it enough to hold up1 as 
it were1 life as it is to-day beside his
 visions1 and to show how faded its     
colours were and how sapless it was4    
,and if we had not enough artistic      
feeling1 enough feeling for the perfect 
that is1 to admit the authority of the  
vision2 or enough faith to understand   
that all that is imperfect passes away1 
he would not1 as ,i think1 have argued  
with us in a serious spirit4 ,though ,i 
think that he never used the kinds of   
words ,i use in writing of him1 though  
,i think he would even have disliked a  
word like faith with its theological    
associations1 ,i am certain that he     
understood thoroughly1 as all artists   
understand a little1 that the important 

things1 the things we must believe in or
 perish1 are beyond argument4 ,we can no
 more reason about them than can the    
pigeon1 come but lately from the egg1   
about the hawk whose shadow makes it    
cower among the grass4 ,his vision is   
true because it is poetical1 because we 
are a little happier when we are looking
 at it2 and he knew as ,shelley knew by 
an act of faith that the economists     
should take their measurements not from 
life as it is1 but from the vision of   
men like him1 from the vision of the    
world made perfect that is buried under 
all minds4 ,the early ,christians were  
of the kin of the ,wilderness and of the
 ,dry ,tree1 and they saw an unearthly  
,paradise1 but he was of the kin of the 
,well and of the ,green ,tree and he saw
 an ,earthly ,paradise4  ,he obeyed his 
vision when he tried to make first his  
own house1 for he was in this matter    
also like a child playing with the      
world1 and then houses of other people1 
places where one could live happily2 and

 he obeyed it when he wrote essays about
 the nature of happy work1 and when he  
spoke at street corners about the coming
 changes4  ,he knew clearly what he was 
doing towards the end1 for he lived at a
 time when poets and artists have begun 
again to carry the burdens that priests 
and theologians took from them angrily  
some few hundred years ago4 ,his art was
 not more essentially religious than    
,rossetti's art1 but it was different1  
for ,rossetti1 drunken with natural     
beauty1 saw the supernatural beauty1 the
 impossible beauty1 in his frenzy1 while
 he being less intense and more tranquil
 would show us a beauty that would      
wither if it did not set us at peace    
with natural things1 and if we did not  
believe that it existed always a little1
 and would some day exist in its        
fulness4 ,he may not have been1 indeed  
he was not1 among the very greatest of  
the poets1 but he was among the greatest
 of those who prepare the last          
reconciliation when the ,cross shall    

blossom with roses4  #aijb4     ,,the   
,,philosophy ,,of ,,shelley',s ,,poetry 
,i4 ,,his ,,ruling ,,ideas  ,when ,i was
 a boy in ,dublin ,i was one of a group 
who rented a room in a mean street to   
discuss philosophy4 ,my fellow-students 
got more and more interested in certain 
modern schools of mystical belief1 and  
,i never found anybody to share my one  
unshakable belief4 ,i thought that      
whatever of philosophy has been made    
poetry is alone permanent1 and that one 
should begin to arrange it in some      
regular order1 rejecting nothing as the 
make-believe of the poets4 ,i thought1  
so far as ,i can recollect my thoughts  
after so many years1 that if a powerful 
and benevolent spirit has shaped the    
destiny of this world1 we can better    
discover that destiny from the words    
that have gathered up the heart's desire
 of the world1 than from historical     
records1 or from speculation1 wherein   
the heart withers4 ,since then ,i have  
observed dreams and visions very        

carefully1 and am now certain that the  
imagination has some way of lighting on 
the truth that the reason has not1 and  
that its commandments1 delivered when   
the body is still and the reason silent1
 are the most binding we can ever know4 
,i have re-read ,prometheus ,unbound1   
which ,i had hoped my fellow-students   
would have studied as a sacred book1 and
 it seems to me to have an even more    
certain place than ,i had thought1 among
 the sacred books of the world4 ,i      
remember going to a learned scholar to  
ask about its deep meanings1 which ,i   
felt more than understood1 and his      
telling me that it was ,godwin's        
,political ,justice put into rhyme1 and 
that ,shelley was a crude revolutionist1
 and believed that the overturning of   
kings and priests would regenerate      
mankind4 ,i quoted the lines which tell 
how the halcyons ceased to prey on fish1
 and how poisonous leaves became good   
for food1 to show that he foresaw more  
than any political regeneration1 but was

 too timid to push the argument4 ,i     
still believe that one cannot help      
believing him1 as this scholar ,i know  
believes him1 a vague thinker1 who mixed
 occasional great poetry with a         
phantastic rhetoric1 unless one compares
 such passages1 and above all such      
passages as describe the liberty he     
praised1 till one has discovered the    
system of belief that lay behind them4  
,it should seem natural to find his     
thought full of subtlety1 for ,mrs4     
,shelley has told how he hesitated      
whether he should be a metaphysician or 
a poet1 and has spoken of his 'huntings 
after the obscure' with regret1 and said
 of that ,prometheus ,unbound1 which so 
many for three generations have thought 
,political ,justice put into rhyme1 ',it
 requires a mind as subtle and          
penetrating as his own to understand the
 mystic meanings scattered throughout   
the poem4 ,they elude the ordinary      
reader by their abstraction and delicacy
 of distinction1 but they are far from  

vague4 ,it was his design to write prose
 metaphysical essays on the ,nature of  
,man1 which would have served to explain
 much of what is obscure in his poetry2 
a few scattered fragments of observation
 and remarks alone remain4 ,he          
considered these philosophical views of 
mind and nature to be instinct with the 
intensest spirit of poetry4' ,from these
 scattered fragments and observations1  
and from many passages read in their    
light1 one soon comes to understand that
 his liberty was so much more than the  
liberty of ,political ,justice that it  
was one with ,intellectual ,beauty1 and 
that the regeneration he foresaw was so 
much more than the regeneration many    
political dreamers have foreseen1 that  
it could not come in its perfection till
 the hours bore ',time to his grave in  
eternity4' ,in ,a ,defence of ,poetry1  
the profoundest essay on the foundation 
of poetry in ,english1 he shows that the
 poet and the lawgiver hold their       
station by the right of the same        

faculty1 the one uttering in words and  
the other in the forms of society1 his  
vision of the divine order1 the         
,intellectual ,beauty4 ',poets1         
according to the circumstances of the   
age and nation in which they appeared1  
were called in the earliest epoch of the
 world legislators or prophets1 and a   
poet essentially comprises and unites   
both these characters4 ,for he not only 
beholds intensely the present as it is1 
and discovers those laws according to   
which present things are to be ordained1
 but he beholds the future in the       
present1 and his thoughts are the germs 
of the flowers and the fruit of latest  
time4' ',language1 colour1 form1 and    
religious and civil habits of action1   
are all the instruments and materials of
 poetry4' ,poetry is 'the creation of   
actions according to the unchangeable   
process of human nature as existing in  
the mind of the creator1 which is itself
 the image of all other minds4' ',poets 
have been challenged to resign the civic

 crown to reasoners and merchants4444   
,it is admitted that the exercise of the
 imagination is the most delightful1 but
 it is alleged that that of reason is   
the more useful4444 ,whilst the         
mechanist abridges and the political    
economist combines labour1 let them be  
sure that their speculations1 for want  
of correspondence with those first      
principles which belong to the          
imagination1 do not tend1 as they have  
in modern ,england1 to exasperate at    
once the extremes of luxury and want4444
 ,the rich have become richer1 the poor 
have become poorer1444 such are the     
effects which must ever flow from an    
unmitigated exercise of the calculating 
faculty4' ,the speaker of these things  
might almost be ,blake1 who held that   
the ,reason not only created ,ugliness1 
but all other evils4 ,the books of all  
wisdom are hidden in the cave of the    
,witch of ,atlas1 who is one of his     
personifications of beauty1 and when she
 moves over the enchanted river that is 

an image of all life1 the priests cast  
aside their deceits1 and the king crowns
 an ape to mock his own sovereignty1 and
 the soldiers gather about the anvils to
 beat their swords to ploughshares1 and 
lovers cast away their timidity1 and    
friends are united2 while the power1    
which in ,laon and ,cythna1 awakens the 
mind of the reformer to contend1 and    
itself contends1 against the tyrannies  
of the world1 is first seen1 as the star
 of love or beauty4 ,and at the end of  
,the ,ode to ,naples1 he cries out to   
'the spirit of beauty' to overturn the  
tyrannies of the world1 or to fill them 
with its 'harmonizing ardours4' ,he     
calls the spirit of beauty liberty1     
because despotism1 and perhaps1 as 'the 
man of virtuous soul commands not nor   
obeys1' all authority1 pluck virtue from
 her path towards beauty1 and because it
 leads us by that love whose service is 
perfect freedom4 ,it leads all things by
 love1 for he cries again and again that
 love is the perception of beauty in    

thought and things1 and it orders all   
things by love1 for it is love that     
impels the soul to its expressions in   
thought and in action1 by making us     
'seek to awaken in all things that are1 
a community with what we experience     
within ourselves4' ',we are born into   
the world1 and there is something within
 us which1 from the instant that we     
live1 more and more thirsts after its   
likeness4' ,we have 'a soul within our  
soul that describes a circle around its 
proper paradise which pain and sorrow   
and evil dare not overleap1' and we     
labour to see this soul in many mirrors1
 that we may possess it the more        
abundantly4 ,he would hardly seek the   
progress of the world by any less gentle
 labour1 and would hardly have us resist
 evil itself4 ,he bids the reformers in 
,the ,philosophical ,review of ,reform  
receive 'the onset of the cavalry1' if  
it be sent to disperse their meetings1  
'with folded arms1' and 'not because    
active resistance is not justifiable1   

but because temperance and courage would
 produce greater advantages than the    
most decisive victory2' and he gives    
them like advice in ,the ,masque of     
,anarchy1 for liberty1 the poem cries1  
'is love1' and can make the rich man    
kiss its feet1 and1 like those who      
followed ,christ1 give away his goods   
and follow it throughout the world4  ,he
 does not believe that the reformation  
of society can bring this beauty1 this  
divine order1 among men without the     
regeneration of the hearts of men4 ,even
 in ,queen ,mab1 which was written      
before he had found his deepest thought1
 or rather perhaps before he had found  
words to utter it1 for ,i do not think  
men change much in their deepest        
thought1 he is less anxious to change   
men's beliefs1 as ,i think1 than to cry 
out against that serpent more subtle    
than any beast of the field1 'the cause 
and the effect of tyranny4' ,he affirms 
again and again that the virtuous1 those
 who have 'pure desire and universal    

love1' are happy in the midst of        
tyranny1 and he foresees a day when 'the
 spirit of nature1' the spirit of beauty
 of his later poems1 who has her 'throne
 of power unappealable in every human   
heart1' shall have made men so virtuous 
that 'kingly glare will lose its power  
to dazzle and silently pass by1' and as 
it seems even commerce1 'the venal      
interchange of all that human art or    
nature yields1 which wealth should      
purchase not1' come as silently to an   
end4  ,he was always1 indeed in chief1 a
 witness for that 'power unappealable4' 
,maddalo1 in ,julian and ,maddalo1 says 
that the soul is powerless1 and can     
only1 like a 'dreary bell hung in a     
heaven-illumined tower1 toll our        
thoughts and our desires to meet round  
the rent heart and pray'2 but ,julian1  
who is ,shelley himself1 replies1 as the
 makers of all religions have replied-- 
',where is the beauty1 love and truth we
 seek   ,but in our minds8 ,and if we   
were not weak1   ,should we be less in  

deed than in desire8'  while ,mont      
,blanc is an intricate analogy to affirm
 that the soul has its sources in 'the  
secret strength of things1' 'which      
governs thought and to the infinite     
heavens is a law4' ,he even thought that
 men might be immortal were they        
sinless1 and his ,cythna bids the       
sailors be without remorse1 for all that
 live are stained as they are4 ,it is   
thus1 she says1 that time marks men and 
their thoughts for the tomb4 ,and the   
',red ,comet1' the image of evil in     
,laon and ,cythna1 when it began its war
 with the star of beauty1 brought not   
only ',fear1 ,hatred1 ,fraud1 and       
,tyranny1' but ',death1 ,decay1         
,earthquake1 and ,blight and ,madness   
pale4'  ,when the ,red ,comet is        
conquered1 when ,jupiter is overthrown  
by ,demogorgon1 when the prophecy of    
,queen ,mab is fulfilled1 visible nature
 will put on perfection again4 ,he      
declares1 in one of the notes to ,queen 
,mab1 that 'there is no great           

extravagance in presuming 444 that there
 should be a perfect identity between   
the moral and physical improvement of   
the human species1' and thinks it       
'certain that wisdom is not compatible  
with disease1 and that1 in the present  
state of the climates of the earth1     
health in the true and comprehensive    
sense of the word is out of the reach of
 civilized man4' ,in ,prometheus        
,unbound he sees1 as in the ecstasy of a
 saint1 the ships moving among the seas 
of the world without fear of danger     
'by the light   ,of wave-reflected      
flowers1 and floating odours1   ,and    
music soft1'  and poison dying out of   
the green things1 and cruelty out of all
 living things1 and even the toads and  
efts becoming beautiful1 and at last    
,time being borne 'to his tomb in       
eternity4'  ,this beauty1 this divine   
order1 whereof all things shall become a
 part in a kind of resurrection of the  
body1 is already visible to the dead and
 to souls in ecstasy1 for ecstasy is a  

kind of death4 ,the dying ,lionel hears 
the song of the nightingale1 and cries--
    ',heardst thou not sweet words among
   ,that heaven-resounding minstrelsy8  
,heardst thou not that those who die    
,awake in a world of ecstasy8   ,how    
love1 when limbs are interwoven1   ,and 
sleep1 when the night of life is cloven1
   ,and thought to the world's dim      
boundaries clinging1   ,and music when  
one beloved is singing1   ,is death8    
,let us drain right joyously   ,the cup 
which the sweet bird fills for me4'     
,and in the most famous passage in all  
his poetry he sings of ,death as of a   
mistress4 ',life1 like a dome of        
many-coloured glass1 stains the white   
radiance of eternity4' ',die1 if thou   
wouldst be with that which thou wouldst 
seek2' and he sees his own soon-coming  
death in a rapture of prophecy1 for 'the
 fire for which all thirst' beams upon  
him1 'consuming the last clouds of cold 
mortality4' ,when he is dead he will    
still influence the living1 for though  

,adonais has fled 'to the burning       
fountains whence he came1' and 'is a    
portion of the eternal which must glow  
through time and change unquenchably the
 same1' and has 'awaked from the dream  
of life1' he has not gone from 'the     
young dawn1' or the 'caverns in the     
forests1' or 'the faint flowers and the 
fountains4' ,he has been 'made one with 
nature1' and his voice is 'heard in all 
her music1' and his presence is felt    
wherever 'that power may move which has 
withdrawn his being to its own1' and he 
bears 'his part' when it is compelling  
mortal things to their appointed forms1 
and he overshadows men's minds at their 
supreme moments1 for                    
'when lofty thought   ,lifts a young    
heart above its mortal lair1   ,and love
 and life contend in it for what        
,shall be its earthly doom1 the dead    
live there1   ,and move like winds of   
light on dark and stormy air4'  ',of his
 speculations as to what will befall    
this inestimable spirit when we appear  

to die1' ,mrs4 ,shelley has written1 'a 
mystic ideality tinged these            
speculations in ,shelley's mind2 certain
 stanzas in the poem of ,the ,sensitive 
,plant express1 in some degree1 the     
almost inexpressible idea1 not that we  
die into another state1 when this state 
is no longer1 from some reason1         
unapparent as well as apparent1         
accordant with our being--but that those
 who rise above the ordinary nature of  
man1 fade from before our imperfect     
organs2 they remain in their love1      
beauty1 and delight1 in a world         
congenial to them1 and we1 clogged by   
error1 ignorance1 and strife1 see them  
not till we are fitted by purification  
and improvement to their higher state4' 
,not merely happy souls1 but all        
beautiful places and movements and      
gestures and events1 when we think they 
have ceased to be1 have become portions 
of the eternal4                    ',in 
this life   ,of error1 ignorance1 and   
strife1   ,where nothing is1 but all    

things seem1   ,and we the shadows of   
the dream1    ,it is a modest creed1 and
 yet   ,pleasant1 if one considers it1  
,to own that death itself must be1      
,like all the rest1 a mockery4    ,this 
garden sweet1 that lady fair1   ,and all
 sweet shapes and odours there1   ,in   
truth have never passed away2   ',tis   
we1 'tis ours are changed1 not they4    
,for love and beauty and delight        
,there is no death1 nor change2 their   
might   ,exceeds our organs1 which      
endure   ,no light1 being themselves    
obscure4'  ,he seems in his speculations
 to have lit on that memory of nature   
the visionaries claim for the foundation
 of their knowledge2 but ,i do not know 
whether he thought1 as they do1 that all
 things good and evil remain for ever1  
'thinking the thought and doing the     
deed1' though not1 it may be1           
self-conscious2 or only thought that    
'love and beauty and delight' remain for
 ever4 ,the passage where ,queen ,mab   
awakes 'all knowledge of the past1' and 

the good and evil 'events of old and    
wondrous times1' was no more doubtless  
than a part of the machinery of the     
poem1 but all the machineries of poetry 
are parts of the convictions of         
antiquity1 and readily become again     
convictions in minds that dwell upon    
them in a spirit of intense idealism4   
,intellectual ,beauty has not only the  
happy dead to do her will1 but          
ministering spirits who correspond to   
the ,devas of the ,east1 and the        
,elemental ,spirits of medival ,europe1 
and the ,sidhe of ancient ,ireland1 and 
whose too constant presence1 and perhaps
 ,shelley's ignorance of their more     
traditional forms1 give some of his     
poetry an air of rootless phantasy4     
,they change continually in his poetry1 
as they do in the visions of the mystics
 everywhere and of the common people in 
,ireland1 and the forms of these changes
 display1 in an especial sense1 the     
glowing forms of his mind when freed    
from all impulse not out of itself or   

out of supersensual power4 ,these are   
'gleams of a remoter world which visit  
us in sleep1' spiritual essences whose  
shadows are the delights of all the     
senses1 sounds 'folded in cells of      
crystal silence1' 'visions swift and    
sweet and quaint1' which lie waiting    
their moment 'each in his thin sheath   
like a chrysalis1' 'odours' among       
'ever-blooming eden trees'1 'liquors'   
that can give 'happy sleep1' or can make
 tears 'all wonder and delight'2 ',the  
golden genii who spoke to the poets of  
,greece in dreams'2 'the phantoms' which
 become the forms of the arts when 'the 
mind1 arising bright from the embrace of
 beauty1' 'casts on them the gathered   
rays which are reality'2 the 'guardians'
 who move in 'the atmosphere of human   
thought' as 'the birds within the wind1 
or the fish within the wave1' or man's  
thought itself through all things2 and  
who join the throng of the happy hours  
when ,time is passing away--        ',as
 the flying fish leap       ,from the   

,indian deep1   ,and mix with the       
seabirds half asleep4'  ,it is these    
powers which lead ,asia and ,panthea1 as
 they would lead all the affections of  
humanity1 by words written upon leaves1 
by faint songs1 by eddies of echoes that
 draw 'all spirits on that secret way1' 
by the 'dying odours' of flowers and by 
'the sunlight of the sphered dew1'      
beyond the gates of birth and death to  
awake ,demogorgon1 eternity1 that 'the  
painted veil' 'called life' may be 'torn
 aside4'  ,there are also ministers of  
ugliness and all evil1 like those that  
came to ,prometheus--    ',as from the  
rose which the pale priestess kneels    
,to gather for her festal crown of      
flowers1   ,the arial crimson falls1    
flushing her cheek1   ,so from our      
victim's destined agony   ,the shade    
which is our form invests us round2     
,else we are shapeless as our mother    
,night4'  ,or like those whose shapes   
the poet sees in ,the ,triumph of ,life1
 coming from the procession that follows

 the car of life1 as 'hope' changes to  
'desire1' shadows 'numerous as the dead 
leaves blown in autumn evening from a   
poplar tree'2 and resembling those they 
come from1 until1 if ,i understand an   
obscure phrase aright1 they are 'wrapt' 
round 'all the busy phantoms that live  
there as the sun shapes the clouds4'    
,some to sit 'chattering like apes1' and
 some like 'old anatomies' 'hatching    
their bare broods under the shade of    
dmons' wings1' laughing 'to reassume the
 delegated powers' they had given to the
 tyrants of the earth1 and some 'like   
small gnats and flies' to throng 'about 
the brow of lawyers1 statesmen1 priest  
and theorist1' and some 'like           
discoloured shapes of snow' to fall 'on 
fairest bosoms and the sunniest hair1'  
to be 'melted by the youthful glow which
 they extinguish1' and many to 'fling   
shadows of shadows yet unlike           
themselves1' shadows that are shaped    
into new forms by that 'creative ray' in
 which all move like motes4  ,these     

ministers of beauty and ugliness were   
certainly more than metaphors or        
picturesque phrases to one who believed 
the 'thoughts which are called real or  
external objects' differed but in       
regularity of recurrence from           
'hallucinations1 dreams1 and the ideas  
of madness1' and lessened this          
difference by telling how he had dreamed
 'three several times1 between intervals
 of two or more years1 the same precise 
dream1' and who had seen images with the
 mind's eye that left his nerves shaken 
for days together4 ,shadows that were as
 when there                             
'hovers   ,a flock of vampire bats      
before the glare   ,of the tropic sun1  
bringing1 ere evening1   ,strange night 
upon some ,indian vale1'  could not but 
have had more than a metaphorical and   
picturesque being to one who had spoken 
in terror with an image of himself1 and 
who had fainted at the apparition of a  
woman with eyes in her breasts1 and who 
had tried to burn down a wood1 if we can

 trust ,mrs4 ,williams' account1 because
 he believed a devil1 who had first     
tried to kill him1 had sought refuge    
there4  ,it seems to me1 indeed1 that   
,shelley had reawakened in himself the  
age of faith1 though there were times   
when he would doubt1 as even the saints 
have doubted1 and that he was a         
revolutionist1 because he had heard the 
commandment1 ',if ye know these things1 
happy are ye if ye do them4' ,i have    
re-read his ,prometheus ,unbound for the
 first time for many years1 in the woods
 of ,drim-da-rod1 among the ,echte      
hills1 and sometimes ,i have looked     
towards ,slieve-nan-,orr1 where the     
country people say the last battle of   
the world shall be fought till the third
 day1 when a priest shall lift a        
chalice1 and the thousand years of peace
 begin4 ,and ,i think this mysterious   
song utters a faith as simple and as    
ancient as the faith of those country   
people1 in a form suited to a new age1  
that will understand1 with ,blake1 that 

the holy spirit is 'an intellectual     
fountain1' and that the kinds and       
degrees of beauty are the images of its 
authority4   ,,ii4 ,,his ,,ruling       
,,symbols  ,at a comparatively early    
time ,shelley made his imprisoned       
,cythna become wise in all human wisdom 
through the contemplation of her own    
mind1 and write out this wisdom upon the
 sand in 'signs' that were 'clear       
elemental shapes whose smallest change' 
made 'a subtler language within         
language' and were 'the key of truths1  
which once were dimly taught in old     
,crotona4' ,his early romances and much 
throughout his poetry show how strong a 
fascination the traditions of magic and 
of the magical philosophy had cast over 
his mind1 and one can hardly suppose    
that he had not brooded over their      
doctrine of symbols or signatures1      
though ,i do not find anything to show  
that he gave it any deep study4 ,one    
finds in his poetry1 besides innumerable
 images that have not the definiteness  

of symbols1 many images that are        
certainly symbols1 and as the years went
 by he began to use these with a more   
and more deliberately symbolic purpose4 
,i imagine that1 when he wrote his      
earlier poems1 he allowed the           
subconscious life to lay its hands so   
firmly upon the rudder of his           
imagination1 that he was little         
conscious of the abstract meaning of the
 images that rose in what seemed the    
idleness of his mind4 ,any one who has  
any experience of any mystical state of 
the soul knows how there float up in the
 mind profound symbols1#a whose meaning1
 if indeed they do not delude one into  
the dream that they are meaningless1 one
 does not perhaps understand for years4 
,nor ,i think has any one1 who has known
 that experience with any constancy1    
failed to find some day in some old book
 or on some old monument1 a strange or  
intricate image1 that had floated up    
before him1 and grow perhaps dizzy with 
the sudden conviction that our little   

memories are but a part of some great   
memory that renews the world and men's  
thoughts age after age1 and that our    
thoughts are not1 as we suppose1 the    
deep but a little foam upon the deep4   
,shelley understood this1 as is proved  
by what he says of the eternity of      
beautiful things and of the influence of
 the dead1 but whether he understood    
that the great memory is also a         
dwelling-house of symbols1 of images    
that are living souls1 ,i cannot tell4  
,he had certainly experience of all but 
the most profound of the mystical       
states1 of that union with created      
things which assuredly must precede the 
soul's union with the uncreated spirit4 
,he says in his fragment of an essay    
upon life1 mistaking a unique experience
 for the common experience of all3 ',let
 us recollect our sensations as children
 444 we less habitually distinguished   
all that we saw and felt from ourselves4
 ,they seemed as it were to constitute  
one mass4 ,there are some persons who in

 this respect are always children4      
,those who are subject to the state     
called reverie1 feel as if their nature 
were resolved into the surrounding      
universe1 or as if the surrounding      
universe were resolved into their       
being1' and he must have expected to    
receive thoughts and images from beyond 
his own mind1 just in so far as that    
mind transcended its preoccupation with 
particular time and place1 for he       
believed inspiration a kind of death2   
and he could hardly have helped         
perceiving that an image that has       
transcended particular time and place   
becomes a symbol1 passes beyond death1  
as it were1 and becomes a living soul4  
,when ,shelley went to the ,continent   
with ,godwin's daughter in #ahab they   
sailed down certain great rivers in an  
open boat1 and when he summed up in his 
preface to ,laon and ,cythna the things 
that helped to make him a poet1 he spoke
 of these voyages3 ',i have sailed down 
mighty rivers and seen the sun rise and 

set and the stars come forth whilst ,i  
sailed night and day down a rapid stream
 among mountains4'  ,he may have seen   
some cave that was the bed of a rivulet 
by some river side1 or have followed    
some mountain stream to its source in a 
cave1 for from his return to ,england   
rivers and streams and wells1 flowing   
through caves or rising in them1 came   
into every poem of his that was of any  
length1 and always with the precision of
 symbols4 ,alastor passed in his boat   
along a river in a cave2 and when for   
the last time he felt the presence of   
the spirit he loved and followed1 it was
 when he watched his image in a silent  
well2 and when he died it was where a   
river fell into 'an abysmal chasm'2 and 
the ,witch of ,atlas in her gladness1 as
 he in his sadness1 passed in her boat  
along a river in a cave1 and it was     
where it bubbled out of a cave that she 
was born2 and when ,rousseau1 the       
typical poet of ,the ,triumph of ,life1 
awoke to the vision that was life1 it   

was where a rivulet bubbled out of a    
cave2 and the poet of ,epipsychidion met
 the evil beauty 'by a well under blue  
nightshade bowers'2 and ,cythna bore her
 child imprisoned in a great cave beside
 'a fountain round and vast and in which
 the wave imprisoned leaped and boiled  
perpetually'2 and her lover ,laon was   
brought to his prison in a high column  
through a cave where there was 'a putrid
 pool1' and when he went to see the     
conquered city he dismounted beside a   
polluted fountain in the market-place1  
foreshadowing thereby that spirit who at
 the end of ,prometheus ,unbound gazes  
at a regenerated city from 'within a    
fountain in the public square'2 and when
 ,laon and ,cythna are dead they awake  
beside a fountain and drift into        
,paradise along a river2 and at the end 
of things ,prometheus and ,asia are to  
live amid a happy world in a cave where 
a fountain 'leaps with an awakening     
sound'2 and it was by a fountain1 the   
meeting-place of certain unhappy lovers1

 that ,rosalind and ,helen told their   
unhappiness to one another2 and it was  
under a willow by a fountain that the   
enchantress and her lover began their   
unhappy love2 while his lesser poems and
 his prose fragments use caves and      
rivers and wells and fountains          
continually as metaphors4 ,it may be    
that his subconscious life seized upon  
some passing scene1 and moulded it into 
an ancient symbol without help from     
anything but that great memory2 but so  
good a ,platonist as ,shelley could     
hardly have thought of any cave as a    
symbol1 without thinking of ,plato's    
cave that was the world2 and so good a  
scholar may well have had ,porphyry on  
'the ,cave of the ,nymphs' in his mind4 
,when ,i compare ,porphyry's description
 of the cave where the ,phacian boat    
left ,odysseus1 with ,shelley's         
description of the cave of the ,witch of
 ,atlas1 to name but one of many1 ,i    
find it hard to think otherwise4 ,i     
quote ,taylor's translation1 only       

putting ,mr4 ,lang's prose for ,taylor's
 bad verse4 ',what does ,homer obscurely
 signify by the cave in ,ithaca which he
 describes in the following verses8 ,now
 at the harbour's head is a long-leaved 
olive tree1 and hard by is a pleasant   
cave and shadowy1 sacred to the nymphs1 
that are called ,naiads4 ,and therein   
are mixing bowls and jars of stone1 and 
there moreover do bees hive4 ,and there 
are great looms of stone1 whereon the   
nymphs weave raiment of purple stain1 a 
marvel to behold2 and there are waters  
welling ever more4 ,two gates there are 
to the cave1 the one set towards the    
,north wind1 whereby men may go down1   
but the portals toward the ,south       
pertain rather to the gods1 whereby men 
may not enter3 it is the way of the     
immortals4' ,he goes on to argue that   
the cave was a temple before ,homer     
wrote1 and that 'the ancients did not   
establish temples without fabulous      
symbols1' and then begins to interpret  
,homer's description in all its detail4 

,the ancients1 he says1 'consecrated a  
cave to the world' and held 'the flowing
 waters' and the 'obscurity of the      
cavern' 'apt symbols of what the world  
contains1' and he calls to witness      
,zoroaster's cave with fountains2 and   
often caves are1 he says1 symbols of    
'all invisible power2 because as caves  
are obscure and dark1 so the essence of 
all these powers is occult1' and quotes 
a lost hymn to ,apollo to prove that    
nymphs living in caves fed men 'from    
intellectual fountains'2 and he contends
 that fountains and rivers symbolize    
generation1 and that the word nymph 'is 
commonly applied to all souls descending
 into generation1' and that the two     
gates of ,homer's cave are the gate of  
generation and the gate of ascent       
through death to the gods1 the gate of  
cold and moisture1 and the gate of heat 
and fire4 ,cold1 he says1 causes life in
 the world1 and heat causes life among  
the gods1 and the constellation of the  
cup is set in the heavens near the sign 

,cancer1 because it is there that the   
souls descending from the ,milky ,way   
receive their draught of the            
intoxicating cold drink of generation4  
',the mixing bowls and jars of stone'   
are consecrated to the ,naiads1 and are 
also1 as it seems1 symbolical of        
,bacchus1 and are of stone because of   
the rocky beds of the rivers4 ,and 'the 
looms of stone' are the symbols of the  
'souls that descend into generation4'   
',for the formation of the flesh is on  
or about the bones1 which in the bodies 
of animals resemble stones1' and also   
because 'the body is a garment' not only
 about the soul1 but about all essences 
that become visible1 for 'the heavens   
are called by the ancients a veil1 in   
consequence of being as it were the     
vestments of the celestial gods4' ,the  
bees hive in the mixing bowls and jars  
of stone1 for so ,porphyry understands  
the passage1 because honey was the      
symbol adopted by the ancients for      
'pleasure arising from generation4' ,the

 ancients1 he says1 called souls not    
only ,naiads but bees1 'as the efficient
 cause of sweetness'2 but not all souls 
'proceeding into generation' are called 
bees1 'but those who will live in it    
justly and who after having performed   
such things as are acceptable to the    
gods will again return 7to their kindred
 stars74 ,for this insect loves to      
return to the place from whence it came 
and is eminently just and sober4' ,i    
find all these details in the cave of   
the ,witch of ,atlas1 the most          
elaborately described of ,shelley's     
caves1 except the two gates1 and these  
have a far-off echo in her summer       
journeys on her cavern river and in her 
winter sleep in 'an inextinguishable    
well of crimson fire4' ,we have for the 
mixing bowls1 and jars of stone full of 
honey1 those delights of the senses1    
'sounds of air' 'folded in cells of     
crystal silences1' 'liquors clear and   
sweet' 'in crystal vials1' and for the  
bees1 visions 'each in his thin sheath  

like a chrysalis1' and for 'the looms of
 stone' and 'raiment of purple stain'   
the ,witch's spinning and embroidering2 
and the ,witch herself is a ,naiad1 and 
was born from one of the ,atlantides1   
who lay in 'a chamber of grey rock'     
until she was changed by the sun's      
embrace into a cloud4  ,when one turns  
to ,shelley for an explanation of the   
cave and fountain one finds how close   
his thought was to ,porphyry's4 ,he     
looked upon thought as a condition of   
life in generation and believed that the
 reality beyond was something other than
 thought4 ,he wrote in his fragment ',on
 ,life1' ',that the basis of all things 
cannot be1 as the popular philosophy    
alleges1 mind1 is sufficiently evident4 
,mind1 as far as we have any experience 
of its properties1 and beyond that      
experience how vain is argument1 cannot 
create1 it can only perceive2' and in   
another passage he defines mind as      
existence4 ,water is his great symbol of
 existence1 and he continually meditates

 over its mysterious source4 ,in his    
prose he tells how 'thought can with    
difficulty visit the intricate and      
winding chambers which it inhabits4 ,it 
is like a river1 whose rapid and        
perpetual stream flows outward4444 ,the 
caverns of the mind are obscure and     
shadowy2 or pervaded with a lustre1     
beautiful and bright indeed1 but shining
 not beyond their portals4' ,when the   
,witch has passed in her boat from the  
caverned river1 that is doubtless her   
own destiny1 she passes along the ,nile 
'by ,moeris and the ,mareotid lakes1'   
and sees all human life shadowed upon   
its waters in shadows that 'never are   
erased but tremble ever'2 and in many a 
dark and subterranean street under the  
,nile--new caverns--and along the bank  
of the ,nile2 and as she bends over the 
unhappy1 she compares unhappiness to    
'the strife that stirs the liquid       
surface of man's life'2 and because she 
can see the reality of things she is    
described as journeying 'in the calm    

depths' of 'the wide lake' we journey   
over unpiloted4 ,alastor calls the river
 that he follows an image of his mind1  
and thinks that it will be as hard to   
say where his thought will be when he is
 dead as where its waters will be in    
ocean or cloud in a little while4 ,in   
,mont ,blanc1 a poem so overladen with  
descriptions in parentheses that one    
loses sight of its logic1 ,shelley      
compares the flowing through our mind of
 'the universe of things1' which are1 he
 has explained elsewhere1 but thoughts1 
to the flowing of the ,arne through the 
ravine1 and compares the unknown sources
 of our thoughts in some 'remoter world'
 whose 'gleams' 'visit the soul in      
sleep1' to ,arne's sources among the    
glaciers on the mountain heights4       
,cythna in the passage where she speaks 
of making signs 'a subtle language      
within language' on the sand by the     
'fountain' of sea water in the cave     
where she is imprisoned1 speaks of the  
'cave' of her mind which gave its       

secrets to her1 and of 'one mind the    
type of all' which is a 'moveless wave' 
reflecting 'all moveless things that    
are'2 and then passing more completely  
under the power of the symbol1 she      
speaks of growing wise through          
contemplation of the images that rise   
out of the fountain at the call of her  
will4 ,again and again one finds some   
passing allusion to the cave of man's   
mind1 or to the caves of his youth1 or  
to the cave of mysteries we enter at    
death1 for to ,shelley as to ,porphyry  
it is more than an image of life in the 
world4 ,it may mean any enclosed life1  
as when it is the dwelling-place of     
,asia and ,prometheus1 or when it is    
'the still cave of poetry1' and it may  
have all meanings at once1 or it may    
have as little meaning as some ancient  
religious symbol enwoven from the habit 
of centuries with the patterns of a     
carpet or a tapestry4  ,as ,shelley     
sailed along those great rivers and saw 
or imagined the cave that associated    

itself with rivers in his mind1 he saw  
half-ruined towers upon the hilltops1   
and once at any rate a tower is used to 
symbolize a meaning that is the contrary
 to the meaning symbolized by caves4    
,cythna's lover is brought through the  
cave where there is a polluted fountain 
to a high tower1 for being man's        
far-seeing mind1 when the world has cast
 him out he must to the 'towers of      
thought's crowned powers'2 nor is it    
possible for ,shelley to have forgotten 
this first imprisonment when he made men
 imprison ,lionel in a tower for a like 
offence2 and because ,i know how hard it
 is to forget a symbolical meaning1 once
 one has found it1 ,i believe ,shelley  
had more than a romantic scene in his   
mind when he made ,prince ,athanase     
follow his mysterious studies in a      
lighted tower above the sea1 and when he
 made the old hermit watch over ,laon in
 his sickness in a half-ruined tower1   
wherein the sea1 here doubtless as to   
,cythna1 'the one mind1' threw 'spangled

 sands' and 'rarest sea shells4' ,the   
tower1 important in ,maeterlinck1 as in 
,shelley1 is1 like the sea1 and rivers1 
and caves with fountains1 a very ancient
 symbol1 and would perhaps1 as years    
went by1 have grown more important in   
his poetry4 ,the contrast between it and
 the cave in ,laon and ,cythna suggests 
a contrast between the mind looking     
outward upon men and things and the mind
 looking inward upon itself1 which may  
or may not have been in ,shelley's mind1
 but certainly helps1 with one knows not
 how many other dim meanings1 to give   
the poem mystery and shadow4 ,it is only
 by ancient symbols1 by symbols that    
have numberless meanings beside the one 
or two the writer lays an emphasis upon1
 or the half-score he knows of1 that any
 highly subjective art can escape from  
the barrenness and shallowness of a too 
conscious arrangement1 into the         
abundance and depth of nature4 ,the poet
 of essences and pure ideas must seek in
 the half-lights that glimmer from      

symbol to symbol as if to the ends of   
the earth1 all that the epic and        
dramatic poet finds of mystery and      
shadow in the accidental circumstance of
 life4  ,the most important1 the most   
precise of all ,shelley's symbols1 the  
one he uses with the fullest knowledge  
of its meaning1 is the ,morning and     
,evening ,star4 ,it rises and sets for  
ever over the towers and rivers1 and is 
the throne of his genius4 ,personified  
as a woman it leads ,rousseau1 the      
typical poet of ,the ,triumph of ,life1 
under the power of the destroying hunger
 of life1 under the power of the sun    
that we shall find presently as a symbol
 of life1 and it is the ,morning ,star  
that wars against the principle of evil 
in ,laon and ,cythna1 at first as a star
 with a red comet1 here a symbol of all 
evil as it is of disorder in            
,epipsychidion1 and then as a serpent   
with an eagle--symbols in ,blake too and
 in the ,alchemists2 and it is the      
,morning ,star that appears as a winged 

youth to a woman1 who typifies humanity 
amid its sorrows1 in the first canto of 
,laon and ,cythna2 and it is evoked by  
the wailing women of ,hellas1 who call  
it 'lamp of the free' and 'beacon of    
love' and would go where it hides flying
 from the deepening night among those   
'kingless continents sinless as ,eden1' 
and 'mountains and islands' 'prankt on  
the sapphire sea' that are but the      
opposing hemispheres to the senses but1 
as ,i think1 the ideal world1 the world 
of the dead1 to the imagination2 and in 
the ,ode to ,liberty1 ,liberty is bid   
lead wisdom out of the inmost cave of   
man's mind as the ,morning ,star leads  
the sun out of the waves4 ,we know too  
that had ,prince ,athanase been finished
 it would have described the finding of 
,pandemus1 the stars' lower genius1 and 
the growing weary of her1 and the coming
 to its true genius ,urania at the      
coming of death1 as the day finds the   
,star at evening4 ,there is hardly      
indeed a poem of any length in which one

 does not find it as a symbol of love1  
or liberty1 or wisdom1 or beauty1 or of 
some other expression of that           
,intellectual ,beauty1 which was to     
,shelley's mind the central power of the
 world2 and to its faint and fleeting   
light he offers up all desires1 that are
 as    ',the desire of the ,moth for the
 star1   ,the desire for something afar 
,from the sphere of our sorrow4'  ,when 
its genius comes to ,rousseau1 shedding 
dew with one hand1 and treading out the 
stars with her feet1 for she is also the
 genius of the dawn1 she brings him a   
cup full of oblivion and love4 ,he      
drinks and his mind becomes like sand   
'on desert ,labrador' marked by the feet
 of deer and a wolf4 ,and then the new  
vision1 life1 the cold light of day     
moves before him1 and the first vision  
becomes an invisible presence4 ,the same
 image was in his mind too when he wrote
    ',hesperus flies from awakening     
night   ,and pants in its beauty with   
speed and light1   ,fast fleeting1 soft 

and bright4'  ,though ,i do not think   
that ,shelley needed to go to           
,porphyry's account of the cold         
intoxicating cup1 given to the souls in 
the constellation of the ,cup near the  
constellation ,cancer1 for so obvious a 
symbol as the cup1 or that he could not 
have found the wolf and the deer and the
 continual flight of his ,star in his   
own mind1 his poetry becomes the richer1
 the more emotional1 and loses something
 of its appearance of idle phantasy when
 ,i remember that these are ancient     
symbols1 and still come to visionaries  
in their dreams4 ,because the wolf is   
but a more violent symbol of longing and
 desire than the hound1 his wolf and    
deer remind me of the hound and deer    
that ,usheen saw in the ,gaelic poem    
chasing one another on the water before 
he saw the young man following the woman
 with the golden apple2 and of a ,galway
 tale that tells how ,niam1 whose name  
means brightness or beauty1 came to     
,usheen as a deer2 and of a vision that 

a friend of mine saw when gazing at a   
dark-blue curtain4 ,i was with a number 
of ,hermetists1 and one of them said to 
another1 ',do you see something in the  
curtain8' ,the other gazed at the       
curtain for a while and saw presently a 
man led through a wood by a black hound1
 and then the hound lay dead at a place 
the seer knew was called1 without       
knowing why1 'the ,meeting of the       
,suns1' and the man followed a red      
hound1 and then the red hound was       
pierced by a spear4 ,a white fawn       
watched the man out of the wood1 but he 
did not look at it1 for a white hound   
came and he followed it trembling1 but  
the seer knew that he would follow the  
fawn at last1 and that it would lead him
 among the gods4 ,the most learned of   
the ,hermetists said1 ',i cannot tell   
the meaning of the hounds or where the  
,meeting of the ,suns is1 but ,i think  
the fawn is the ,morning and ,evening   
,star4' ,i have little doubt that when  
the man saw the white fawn he was coming

 out of the darkness and passion of the 
world into some day of partial          
regeneration1 and that it was the       
,morning ,star and would be the ,evening
 ,star at its second coming4 ,i have    
little doubt that it was but the story  
of ,prince ,athanase and what may have  
been the story of ,rousseau in ,the     
,triumph of ,life1 thrown outward once  
again from that great memory1 which is  
still the mother of the ,muses1 though  
men no longer believe in it4  ,it may   
have been this memory1 or it may have   
been some impulse of his nature too     
subtle for his mind to follow1 that made
 ,keats1 with his love of embodied      
things1 of precision of form and        
colouring1 of emotions made sleepy by   
the flesh1 see ,intellectual ,beauty in 
the ,moon2 and ,blake1 who lived in that
 energy he called eternal delight1 see  
it in the ,sun1 where his               
personification of poetic genius labours
 at a furnace4 ,i think there was       
certainly some reason why these men took

 so deep a pleasure in lights1 that     
,shelley thought of with weariness and  
trouble4 ,the ,moon is the most         
changeable of symbols1 and not merely   
because it is the symbol of change4 ,as 
mistress of the waters she governs the  
life of instinct and the generation of  
things1 for as ,porphyry says1 even 'the
 apparition of images' in the           
'imagination' is through 'an excess of  
moisture'2 and1 as a cold and changeable
 fire set in the bare heavens1 she      
governs alike chastity and the joyless  
idle drifting hither and thither of     
generated things4 ,she may give ,god a  
body and have ,gabriel to bear her      
messages1 or she may come to men in     
their happy moments as she came to      
,endymion1 or she may deny life and     
shoot her arrows2 but because she only  
becomes beautiful in giving herself1 and
 is no flying ideal1 she is not loved by
 the children of desire4  ,shelley could
 not help but see her with unfriendly   
eyes4 ,he is believed to have described 

,mary ,shelley at a time when she had   
come to seem cold in his eyes1 in that  
passage of ,epipsychidion which tells   
how a woman like the ,moon led him to   
her cave and made 'frost' creep over the
 sea of his mind1 and so bewitched life 
and death with 'her silver voice' that  
they ran from him crying1 ',away1 he is 
not of our crew4' ,when he describes the
 ,moon as part of some beautiful scene  
he can call her beautiful1 but when he  
personifies1 when his words come under  
the influence of that great memory or of
 some mysterious tide in the depth of   
our being1 he grows unfriendly or not   
truly friendly or at the most pitiful4  
,the ,moon's lips 'are pale and waning1'
 it is 'the cold ,moon1' or 'the frozen 
and inconstant ,moon1' or it is         
'forgotten' and 'waning1' or it         
'wanders' and is 'weary1' or it is 'pale
 and grey1' or it is 'pale for          
weariness1' and 'wandering              
companionless' and 'ever changing1' and 
finding 'no object worth' its           

'constancy1' or it is like a 'dying     
lady' who 'totters' 'out of her chamber 
led by the insane and feeble wanderings 
of her fading brain1' and even when it  
is no more than a star1 it casts an evil
 influence that makes the lips of lovers
 'lurid' or pale4 ,it only becomes a    
thing of delight when ,time is being    
borne to his tomb in eternity1 for then 
the spirit of the ,earth1 man's         
procreant mind1 fills it with his own   
joyousness4 ,he describes the spirit of 
the ,earth and of the ,moon1 moving     
above the rivulet of their lives in a   
passage which reads like a              
half-understood vision4 ,man has become 
'one harmonious soul of many a soul' and
 'all things flow to all' and 'familiar 
acts are beautiful through love1' and an
 'animation of delight' at this change  
flows from spirit to spirit till the    
snow 'is loosened from the ,moon's      
lifeless mountains4'  ,some old magical 
writer1 ,i forget who1 says if you wish 
to be melancholy hold in your left hand 

an image of the ,moon made out of       
silver1 and if you wish to be happy hold
 in your right hand an image of the ,sun
 made out of gold4 ,the ,sun is the     
symbol of sensitive life1 and of belief 
and joy and pride and energy1 of indeed 
the whole life of the will1 and of that 
beauty which neither lures from far off1
 nor becomes beautiful in giving itself1
 but makes all glad because it is       
beauty4 ,taylor quotes ,proclus as      
calling it 'the ,demiurgos of everything
 sensible4' ,it was therefore natural   
that ,blake1 who was always praising    
energy1 and all exalted overflowing of  
oneself1 and who thought art an         
impassioned labour to keep men from     
doubt and despondency1 and woman's love 
an evil1 when it would trammel the man's
 will1 should see the poetic genius not 
in a woman star but in the ,sun1 and    
should rejoice throughout his poetry in 
'the ,sun in his strength4' ,shelley1   
however1 except when he uses it to      
describe the peculiar beauty of ,emilia 

,viviani1 who was 'like an incarnation  
of the ,sun when light is changed to    
love1' saw it with less friendly eyes4  
,he seems to have seen it with perfect  
happiness only when veiled in mist1 or  
glimmering upon water1 or when faint    
enough to do no more than veil the      
brightness of his own ,star2 and in ,the
 ,triumph of ,life1 the one poem in     
which it is part of the avowed          
symbolism1 its power is the being and   
the source of all tyrannies4 ,when the  
woman personifying the ,morning ,star   
has faded from before his eyes1         
,rousseau sees a 'new vision' in 'a cold
 bright car' with a rainbow hovering    
over her1 and as she comes the shadow   
passes from 'leaf and stone1' and the   
souls she has enslaved seem in 'that    
light like atomies to dance within a    
sunbeam1' or they dance among the       
flowers that grow up newly 'in the      
grassy verdure of the desert1' unmindful
 of the misery that is to come upon     
them4 ',these are the great1 the        

unforgotten1' all who have worn 'mitres 
and helms and crowns or wreaths of      
light1' and yet have not known          
themselves4 ,even 'great ,plato' is     
there because he knew joy and sorrow1   
because life that could not subdue him  
by gold or pain1 by 'age or sloth or    
slavery1' subdued him by love4 ,all who 
have ever lived are there except ,christ
 and ,socrates and 'the sacred few' who 
put away all life could give1 being     
doubtless followers throughout their    
lives of the forms borne by the flying  
ideal1 or who1 'as soon as they had     
touched the world with living flame1    
flew back like eagles to their native   
noon4'  ,in ancient times1 it seems to  
me that ,blake1 who for all his protest 
was glad to be alive1 and ever spoke of 
his gladness1 would have worshipped in  
some chapel of the ,sun1 and that       
,keats1 who accepted life gladly though 
'with a delicious diligent indolence1'  
would have worshipped in some chapel of 
the ,moon1 but that ,shelley1 who hated 

life because he sought 'more in life    
than any understood1' would have        
wandered1 lost in a ceaseless reverie1  
in some chapel of the ,star of infinite 
desire4  ,i think too that as he knelt  
before an altar1 where a thin flame     
burnt in a lamp made of green agate1 a  
single vision would have come to him    
again and again1 a vision of a boat     
drifting down a broad river between high
 hills where there were caves and       
towers1 and following the light of one  
,star2 and that voices would have told  
him how there is for every man some one 
scene1 some one adventure1 some one     
picture that is the image of his secret 
life1 for wisdom first speaks in images1
 and that this one image1 if he would   
but brood over it his life long1 would  
lead his soul1 disentangled from        
unmeaning circumstance and the ebb and  
flow of the world1 into that far        
household1 where the undying gods await 
all whose souls have become simple as   
flame1 whose bodies have become quiet as

 an agate lamp4  ,but he was born in a  
day when the old wisdom had vanished and
 was content merely to write verses1 and
 often with little thought of more than 
verses4  #aijj4     ,,at                
,,stratford-,,on-,,avon   ,i  ,i have   
been hearing ,shakespeare1 as the       
traveller in ,news from ,nowhere might  
have heard him1 had he not been hurried 
back into our noisy time4 ,one passes   
through quiet streets1 where gabled and 
red-tiled houses remember the ,middle   
,age1 to a theatre that has been made   
not to make money1 but for the pleasure 
of making it1 like the market houses    
that set the traveller chuckling2 nor   
does one find it among hurrying cabs and
 ringing pavements1 but in a green      
garden by a river side4 ,inside ,i have 
to be content for a while with a chair1 
for ,i am unexpected1 and there is not  
an empty seat but this2 and yet there is
 no one who has come merely because one 
must go somewhere after dinner4 ,all    
day1 too1 one does not hear or see an   

incongruous or noisy thing1 but spends  
the hours reading the plays1 and the    
wise and foolish things men have said of
 them1 in the library of the theatre1   
with its oak-panelled walls and leaded  
windows of tinted glass2 or one rows by 
reedy banks and by old farmhouses1 and  
by old churches among great trees4 ,it  
is certainly one's fault if one opens a 
newspaper1 for ,mr4 ,benson gives one a 
new play every night1 and one need talk 
of nothing but the play in the          
inn-parlour1 under the oak beams        
blackened by time and showing the mark  
of the adze that shaped them4 ,i have   
seen this week ,king ,john1 ,richard    
,,ii41 the second part of ,henry ,,iv41 
,henry ,v41 the second part of ,henry   
,,vi41 and ,richard ,,iii4 played in    
their right order1 with all the links   
that bind play to play unbroken2 and    
partly because of a spirit in the place1
 and partly because of the way play     
supports play1 the theatre has moved me 
as it has never done before4 ,that      

strange procession of kings and queens1 
of warring nobles1 of insurgent crowds1 
of courtiers1 and of people of the      
gutter has been to me almost too        
visible1 too audible1 too full of an    
unearthly energy4 ,i have felt as ,i    
have sometimes felt on grey days on the 
,galway shore1 when a faint mist has    
hung over the grey sea and the grey     
stones1 as if the world might suddenly  
vanish and leave nothing behind1 not    
even a little dust under one's feet4    
,the people my mind's eye has seen have 
too much of the extravagance of dreams1 
like all the inventions of art before   
our crowded life had brought moderation 
and compromise1 to seem more than a     
dream1 and yet all else has grown dim   
before them4  ,in ,london the first man 
one meets puts any high dream out of    
one's head1 for he will talk to one of  
something at once vapid and exciting1   
some one of those many subjects of      
thought that build up our social unity4 
,but here he gives back one's dream like

 a mirror4 ,if we do not talk of the    
plays1 we talk of the theatre1 and how  
more people may be got to come1 and our 
isolation from common things makes the  
future become grandiose and important4  
,one man tells how the theatre and the  
library were at their foundation but    
part of a scheme the future is to       
fulfil4 ,to them will be added a school 
where speech1 and gesture1 and fencing1 
and all else that an actor needs will be
 taught1 and the council1 which will    
have enlarged its ,festivals to some six
 weeks1 will engage all the chief       
players of ,shakespeare1 and perhaps of 
other great dramatists in this and other
 countries4 ,these chief players will   
need to bring but few of their          
supporters1 for the school will be able 
to fill all the lesser parts with       
players who are slowly recovering the   
lost tradition of musical speech4       
,another man is certain that the        
,festival1 even without the school1     
which would require a new endowment1    

will grow in importance year by year1   
and that it may become with favouring   
chance the supreme dramatic event of the
 world2 and when ,i suggest that it may 
help to break the evil prestige of      
,london he becomes enthusiastic4        
,surely a bitter hatred of ,london is   
becoming a mark of those that love the  
arts1 and all that have this hatred     
should help anything that looks like a  
beginning of a centre of art elsewhere4 
,the easiness of travel1 which is always
 growing1 began by emptying the country1
 but it may end by filling it2 for      
adventures like this of                 
,stratford-on-,avon show that people are
 ready to journey from all parts of     
,england and ,scotland and ,ireland1 and
 even from ,america1 to live with their 
favourite art as shut away from the     
world as though they were 'in retreat1' 
as ,catholics say4 ,nobody but an       
impressionist painter1 who hides it in  
light and mist1 even pretends to love a 
street for its own sake2 and could we   

meet our friends and hear music and     
poetry in the country1 none of us that  
are not captive would ever leave the    
thrushes4 ,in ,london1 we hear something
 that we like some twice or thrice in a 
winter1 and among people who are        
thinking the while of a music-hall      
singer or of a member of parliament1 but
 there we would hear it and see it among
 people who liked it well enough to have
 travelled some few hours to find it2   
and because those who care for the arts 
have few near friendships among those   
that do not1 we would hear and see it   
among near friends4 ,we would escape1   
too1 from those artificial tastes and   
interests we cultivate1 that we may have
 something to talk about among people we
 meet for a few minutes and not again1  
and the arts would grow serious as the  
,ten ,commandments4   ,,ii  ,i do not   
think there is anything ,i disliked in  
,stratford1 beside certain new houses1  
but the shape of the theatre2 and as a  
larger theatre must be built sooner or  

later1 that would be no great matter if 
one could put a wiser shape into        
somebody's head4 ,i cannot think there  
is any excuse for a half-round theatre1 
where land is not expensive1 or no very 
great audience to be seated within      
earshot of the stage2 or that it was    
adopted for a better reason than because
 it has come down to us1 though from a  
time when the art of the stage was a    
different art4 ,the ,elizabethan theatre
 was a half-round1 because the players  
were content to speak their lines on a  
platform1 as if they were speakers at a 
public meeting1 and we go on building in
 the same shape1 although our art of the
 stage is the art of making a succession
 of pictures4 ,were our theatres of the 
shape of a half-closed fan1 like        
,wagner's theatre1 where the audience   
sit on seats that rise towards the broad
 end while the play is played at the    
narrow end1 their pictures could be     
composed for eyes at a small number of  
points of view1 instead of for eyes at  

many points of view1 above and below and
 at the sides1 and what is no better    
than a trade might become an art4 ,with 
the eyes watching from the sides of a   
half-round1 on the floor and in the     
boxes and galleries1 would go the       
solid-built houses and the flat trees   
that shake with every breath of air2 and
 we could make our pictures with robes  
that contrasted with great masses of    
colour in the back cloth and such severe
 or decorative forms of hills and trees 
and houses as would not overwhelm1 as   
our naturalistic scenery does1 the      
idealistic art of the poet1 and all at a
 little price4 ,naturalistic            
scene-painting is not an art1 but a     
trade1 because it is1 at best1 an       
attempt to copy the more obvious effects
 of nature by the methods of the        
ordinary landscape-painter1 and by his  
methods made coarse and summary4 ,it is 
but flashy landscape-painting and lowers
 the taste it appeals to1 for the taste 
it appeals to has been formed by a more 

delicate art4 ,decorative scene-painting
 would be1 on the other hand1 as        
inseparable from the movements as from  
the robes of the players and from the   
falling of the light2 and being in      
itself a grave and quiet thing it would 
mingle with the tones of the voices and 
with the sentiment of the play1 without 
overwhelming them under an alien        
interest4 ,it would be a new and        
legitimate art appealing to a taste     
formed by itself and copying nothing but
 itself4 ,mr4 ,gordon ,craig used       
scenery of this kind at the ,purcell    
,society performance the other day1 and 
despite some marring of his effects by  
the half-round shape of the theatre1 it 
was the first beautiful scenery our     
stage has seen4 ,he created an ideal    
country where everything was possible1  
even speaking in verse1 or speaking in  
music1 or the expression of the whole of
 life in a dance1 and ,i would like to  
see ,stratford-on-,avon decorate its    
,shakespeare with like scenery4 ,as we  

cannot1 it seems1 go back to the        
platform and the curtain1 and the       
argument for doing so is not without    
weight1 we can only get rid of the sense
 of unreality1 which most of us feel    
when we listen to the conventional      
speech of ,shakespeare1 by making       
scenery as conventional4 ,time after    
time his people use at some moment of   
deep emotion an elaborate or deliberate 
metaphor1 or do some improbable thing   
which breaks an emotion of reality we   
have imposed upon him by an art that is 
not his1 nor in the spirit of his4 ,it  
also is an essential part of his method 
to give slight or obscure motives of    
many actions that our attention may     
dwell on what is of chief importance1   
and we set these cloudy actions among   
solid-looking houses1 and what we hope  
are solid-looking trees1 and illusion   
comes to an end1 slain by our desire to 
increase it4 ,in his art1 as in all the 
older art of the world1 there was much  
make-believe1 and our scenery1 too1     

should remember the time when1 as my    
nurse used to tell me1 herons built     
their nests in old men's beards6 ,mr4   
,benson did not venture to play the     
scene in ,richard ,,iii4 where the      
ghosts walk1 as ,shakespeare wrote it1  
but had his scenery been as simple as   
,mr4 ,gordon ,craig's purple back cloth 
that made ,dido and neas seem wandering 
on the edge of eternity1 he would have  
found nothing absurd in pitching the    
tents of ,richard and ,richmond side by 
side4 ,goethe has said1 ',art is art1   
because it is not nature6' ,it brings us
 near to the archetypal ideas           
themselves1 and away from nature1 which 
is but their looking-glass4   ,,iii  ,in
 ,la ,peau de ,chagrin ,balzac spends   
many pages in describing a coquette1 who
 seems the image of heartlessness1 and  
then invents an improbable incident that
 her chief victim may discover how      
beautifully she can sing4 ,nobody had   
ever heard her sing1 and yet in her     
singing1 and in her chatter with her    

maid1 ,balzac tells us1 was her true    
self4 ,he would have us understand that 
behind the momentary self1 which acts   
and lives in the world1 and is subject  
to the judgment of the world1 there is  
that which cannot be called before any  
mortal ,judgment seat1 even though a    
great poet1 or novelist1 or philosopher 
be sitting upon it4 ,great literature   
has always been written in a like       
spirit1 and is1 indeed1 the ,forgiveness
 of ,sin1 and when we find it becoming  
the ,accusation of ,sin1 as in ,george  
,eliot1 who plucks her ,tito in pieces  
with as much assurance as if he had been
 clockwork1 literature has begun to     
change into something else4 ,george     
,eliot had a fierceness one hardly finds
 but in a woman turned argumentative1   
but the habit of mind her fierceness    
gave its life to was characteristic of  
her century1 and is the habit of mind of
 the ,shakespearian critics4 ,they and  
she grew up in a century of             
utilitarianism1 when nothing about a man

 seemed important except his utility to 
the ,state1 and nothing so useful to the
 ,state as the actions whose effect can 
be weighed by the reason4 ,the deeds of 
,coriolanus1 ,hamlet1 ,timon1 ,richard  
,,ii4 had no obvious use1 were1 indeed1 
no more than the expression of their    
personalities1 and so it was thought    
,shakespeare was accusing them1 and     
telling us to be careful lest we deserve
 the like accusations4 ,it did not occur
 to the critics that you cannot know a  
man from his actions1 because you cannot
 watch him in every kind of             
circumstance1 and that men are made     
useless to the ,state as often by       
abundance as by emptiness1 and that a   
man's business may at times be          
revelation1 and not reformation4        
,fortinbras was1 it is likely enough1 a 
better ,king than ,hamlet would have    
been1 ,aufidius was a more reasonable   
man than ,coriolanus1 ,henry ,v4 was a  
better man-at-arms than ,richard ,,ii41 
but after all1 were not those others who

 changed nothing for the better and many
 things for the worse greater in the    
,divine ,hierarchies8 ,blake has said   
that 'the roaring of lions1 the howling 
of wolves1 the raging of the stormy sea1
 and the destructive sword are portions 
of ,eternity1 too great for the eye of  
man1' but ,blake belonged by right to   
the ages of ,faith1 and thought the     
,state of less moment than the ,divine  
,hierarchies4 ,because reason can only  
discover completely the use of those    
obvious actions which everybody admires1
 and because every character was to be  
judged by efficiency in action1         
,shakespearian criticism became a vulgar
 worshipper of ,success4 ,i have turned 
over many books in the library at       
,stratford-on-,avon1 and ,i have found  
in nearly all an antithesis1 which grew 
in clearness and violence as the century
 grew older1 between two types1 whose   
representatives were ,richard ,,ii41    
'sentimental1' 'weak1' 'selfish1'       
'insincere1' and ,henry ,v41            

',shakespeare's only hero4' ,these books
 took the same delight in abasing       
,richard ,,ii4 that school-boys do in   
persecuting some boy of fine            
temperament1 who has weak muscles and a 
distaste for school games4 ,and they had
 the admiration for ,henry ,v4 that     
school-boys have for the sailor or      
soldier hero of a romance in some boys' 
paper4 ,i cannot claim any minute       
knowledge of these books1 but ,i think  
that these emotions began among the     
,german critics1 who perhaps saw        
something ,french and ,latin in ,richard
 ,,ii41 and ,i know that ,professor     
,dowden1 whose book ,i once read        
carefully1 first made these emotions    
eloquent and plausible4 ,he lived in    
,ireland1 where everything has failed1  
and he meditated frequently upon the    
perfection of character which had1 he   
thought1 made ,england successful1 for1 
as we say1 'cows beyond the water have  
long horns4' ,he forgot that ,england1  
as ,gordon has said1 was made by her    

adventurers1 by her people of wildness  
and imagination and eccentricity2 and   
thought that ,henry ,v41 who only seemed
 to be these things because he had some 
commonplace vices1 was not only the     
typical ,anglo-,saxon1 but the model    
,shakespeare held up before ,england2   
and he even thought it worth while      
pointing out that ,shakespeare himself  
was making a large fortune while he was 
writing about ,henry's victories4 ,in   
,professor ,dowden's successors this    
apotheosis went further2 and it reached 
its height at a moment of imperialistic 
enthusiasm1 of ever-deepening conviction
 that the commonplace shall inherit the 
earth1 when somebody of reputation1     
whose name ,i cannot remember1 wrote    
that ,shakespeare admired this one      
character alone out of all his          
characters4 ,the ,accusation of ,sin    
produced its necessary fruit1 hatred of 
all that was abundant1 extravagant1     
exuberant1 of all that sets a sail for  
shipwreck1 and flattery of the          

commonplace emotions and conventional   
ideals of the mob1 the chief ,paymaster 
of accusation4   ,,iv  ,i cannot believe
 that ,shakespeare looked on his        
,richard ,,ii4 with any but sympathetic 
eyes1 understanding indeed how          
ill-fitted he was to be ,king1 at a     
certain moment of history1 but          
understanding that he was lovable and   
full of capricious fancy1 'a wild       
creature' as ,pater has called him4 ,the
 man on whom ,shakespeare modelled him  
had been full of ,french elegancies1 as 
he knew from ,hollingshead1 and had     
given life a new luxury1 a new          
splendour1 and been 'too friendly' to   
his friends1 'too favourable' to his    
enemies4 ,and certainly ,shakespeare had
 these things in his head when he made  
his ,king fail1 a little because he     
lacked some qualities that were         
doubtless common among his scullions1   
but more because he had certain         
qualities that are uncommon in all ages4
 ,to suppose that ,shakespeare preferred

 the men who deposed his ,king is to    
suppose that ,shakespeare judged men    
with the eyes of a ,municipal           
,councillor weighing the merits of a    
,town ,clerk2 and that had he been by   
when ,verlaine cried out from his bed1  
',sir1 you have been made by the stroke 
of a pen1 but ,i have been made by the  
breath of ,god1' he would have thought  
the ,hospital ,superintendent the better
 man4 ,he saw indeed1 as ,i think1 in   
,richard ,,ii4 the defeat that awaits   
all1 whether they be ,artist or ,saint1 
who find themselves where men ask of    
them a rough energy and have nothing to 
give but some contemplative virtue1     
whether lyrical phantasy1 or sweetness  
of temper1 or dreamy dignity1 or love of
 ,god1 or love of ,his creatures4 ,he   
saw that such a man through sheer       
bewilderment and impatience can become  
as unjust or as violent as any common   
man1 any ,bolingbroke or ,prince ,john1 
and yet remain 'that sweet lovely rose4'
 ,the courtly and saintly ideals of the 

,middle ,ages were fading1 and the      
practical ideals of the modern age had  
begun to threaten the unuseful dome of  
the sky2 ,merry ,england was fading1 and
 yet it was not so faded that the ,poets
 could not watch the procession of the  
world with that untroubled sympathy for 
men as they are1 as apart from all they 
do and seem1 which is the substance of  
tragic irony4  ,shakespeare cared little
 for the ,state1 the source of all our  
judgments1 apart from its shows and     
splendours1 its turmoils and battles1   
its flamings out of the uncivilized     
heart4 ,he did indeed think it wrong to 
overturn a ,king1 and thereby to swamp  
peace in civil war1 and the historical  
plays from ,henry ,,iv4 to ,richard     
,,iii41 that monstrous birth and last   
sign of the wrath of ,heaven1 are a     
fulfilment of the prophecy of the       
,bishop of ,carlisle1 who was 'raised up
 by ,god' to make it2 but he had no nice
 sense of utilities1 no ready balance to
 measure deeds1 like that fine          

instrument1 with all the latest         
improvements1 ,gervinus and ,professor  
,dowden handle so skilfully4 ,he        
meditated as ,solomon1 not as ,bentham  
meditated1 upon blind ambitions1        
untoward accidents1 and capricious      
passions1 and the world was almost as   
empty in his eyes as it must be in the  
eyes of ,god4    ',tired with all these1
 for restful death ,i cry2--     ,as1 to
 behold desert a beggar born1   ,and    
needy nothing trimm'd in jollity1       
,and purest faith unhappily forsworn1   
,and gilded honour shamefully misplaced1
     ,and maiden virtue rudely          
strumpeted1   ,and right perfection     
wrongfully disgrac'd1     ,and strength 
by limping sway disabled1   ,and ,art   
made tongue-tied by authority1     ,and 
folly1 doctor-like1 controlling skill1  
,and simple truth miscalled simplicity1 
,and captive good attending captain ill3
   ,tired with all these1 from these    
would ,i begone   ,save that1 to die1 ,i
 leave my love alone4'   ,v  ,the       

,greeks1 a certain scholar has told me1 
considered that myths are the activities
 of the ,dmons1 and that the ,dmons     
shape our characters and our lives4 ,i  
have often had the fancy that there is  
some one ,myth for every man1 which1 if 
we but knew it1 would make us understand
 all he did and thought4 ,shakespeare's 
,myth1 it may be1 describes a wise man  
who was blind from very wisdom1 and an  
empty man who thrust him from his place1
 and saw all that could be seen from    
very emptiness4 ,it is in the story of  
,hamlet1 who saw too great issues       
everywhere to play the trivial game of  
life1 and of ,fortinbras1 who came from 
fighting battles about 'a little patch  
of ground' so poor that one of his      
,captains would not give 'six ducats' to
 'farm it1' and who was yet acclaimed by
 ,hamlet and by all as the only         
befitting ,king4 ,and it is in the story
 of ,richard ,,ii41 that unripened      
,hamlet1 and of ,henry ,v41 that ripened
 ,fortinbras4 ,to poise character       

against character was an element in     
,shakespeare's art1 and scarcely a play 
is lacking in characters that are the   
complement of one another1 and so1      
having made the vessel of porcelain     
,richard ,,ii41 he had to make the      
vessel of clay ,henry ,v4 ,he makes him 
the reverse of all that ,richard was4   
,he has the gross vices1 the coarse     
nerves1 of one who is to rule among     
violent people1 and he is so little 'too
 friendly' to his friends that he       
bundles them out of doors when their    
time is over4 ,he is as remorseless and 
undistinguished as some natural force1  
and the finest thing in his play is the 
way his old companions fall out of it   
broken-hearted or on their way to the   
gallows2 and instead of that lyricism   
which rose out of ,richard's mind like  
the jet of a fountain to fall again     
where it had risen1 instead of that     
phantasy too enfolded in its own        
sincerity to make any thought the hour  
had need of1 ,shakespeare has given him 

a resounding rhetoric that moves men1 as
 a leading article does to-day4 ,his    
purposes are so intelligible to         
everybody that everybody talks of him as
 if he succeeded1 although he fails in  
the end1 as all men great and little    
fail in ,shakespeare1 and yet his       
conquests abroad are made nothing by a  
woman turned warrior1 and that boy he   
and ,katherine were to 'compound1' 'half
 ,french1 half ,english1' 'that' was to 
'go to ,constantinople and take the     
,turk by the beard1' turns out a ,saint1
 and loses all his father had built up  
at home and his own life4  ,shakespeare 
watched ,henry ,v4 not indeed as he     
watched the greater souls in the        
visionary procession1 but cheerfully1 as
 one watches some handsome spirited     
horse1 and he spoke his tale1 as he     
spoke all tales1 with tragic irony4     
,,vi  ,the five plays1 that are but one 
play1 have1 when played one after       
another1 something extravagant and      
superhuman1 something almost            

mythological4 ,those nobles with their  
indifference to death and their immense 
energy seem at times no nearer the      
common stature of men than do the ,gods 
and the heroes of ,greek plays4 ,had    
there been no ,renaissance and no       
,italian influence to bring in the      
stories of other lands ,english history 
would1 it may be1 have become as        
important to the ,english imagination as
 the ,greek ,myths to the ,greek        
imagination2 and many plays by many     
poets would have woven it into a single 
story whose contours1 vast as those of  
,greek myth1 would have made living men 
and women seem like swallows building   
their nests under the architrave of some
 ,temple of the ,giants4 ,english       
literature1 because it would have grown 
out of itself1 might have had the       
simplicity and unity of ,greek          
literature1 for ,i can never get out of 
my head that no man1 even though he be  
,shakespeare1 can write perfectly when  
his web is woven of threads that have   

been spun in many lands4 ,and yet1 could
 those foreign tales have come in if the
 great famine1 the sinking down of      
popular imagination1 the dying out of   
traditional phantasy1 the ebbing out of 
the energy of race1 had not made them   
necessary8 ,the metaphors and language  
of ,euphuism1 compounded of the natural 
history and mythology of the classics1  
were doubtless a necessity also1 that   
something might be poured into the      
emptiness4 ,yet how they injured the    
simplicity and unity of the speech6     
,shakespeare wrote at a time when       
solitary great men were gathering to    
themselves the fire that had once flowed
 hither and thither among all men1 when 
individualism in work and thought and   
emotion was breaking up the old rhythms 
of life1 when the common people1 no     
longer uplifted by the myths of         
,christianity and of still older faiths1
 were sinking into the earth4  ,the     
people of ,stratford-on-,avon have      
remembered little about him1 and        

invented no legend to his glory4 ,they  
have remembered a drinking-bout of his1 
and invented some bad verses for him1   
and that is about all4 ,had he been some
 hard-drinking1 hard-living1            
hard-riding1 loud-blaspheming ,squire   
they would have enlarged his fame by a  
legend of his dealings with the devil2  
but in his day the glory of a ,poet1    
like that of all other imaginative      
powers1 had ceased1 or almost ceased    
outside a narrow class4 ,the poor       
,gaelic rhymer leaves a nobler memory   
among his neighbours1 who will talk of  
,angels standing like flames about his  
death-bed1 and of voices speaking out of
 bramble-bushes that he may have the    
wisdom of the world4 ,the ,puritanism   
that drove the theatres into ,surrey was
 but part of an inexplicable movement   
that was trampling out the minds of all 
but some few thousands born to          
cultivated ease4  ,may #aija4           
,,william ,,blake ,,and ,,the           
,,imagination   ,there have been men who

 loved the future like a mistress1 and  
the future mixed her breath into their  
breath and shook her hair about them1   
and hid them from the understanding of  
their times4 ,william ,blake was one of 
these men1 and if he spoke confusedly   
and obscurely it was because he spoke   
things for whose speaking he could find 
no models in the world about him4 ,he   
announced the religion of art1 of which 
no man dreamed in the world about him2  
and he understood it more perfectly than
 the thousands of subtle spirits who    
have received its baptism in the world  
about us1 because1 in the beginning of  
important things--in the beginning of   
love1 in the beginning of the day1 in   
the beginning of any work1 there is a   
moment when we understand more perfectly
 than we understand again until all is  
finished4 ,in his time educated people  
believed that they amused themselves    
with books of imagination but that they 
'made their souls' by listening to      
sermons and by doing or by not doing    

certain things4 ,when they had to       
explain why serious people like         
themselves honoured the great poets     
greatly they were hard put to it for    
lack of good reasons4 ,in our time we   
are agreed that we 'make our souls' out 
of some one of the great poets of       
ancient times1 or out of ,shelley or    
,wordsworth1 or ,goethe or ,balzac1 or  
,flaubert1 or ,count ,tolstoy1 in the   
books he wrote before he became a       
prophet and fell into a lesser order1 or
 out of ,mr4 ,whistler's pictures1 while
 we amuse ourselves1 or1 at best1 make a
 poorer sort of soul1 by listening to   
sermons or by doing or by not doing     
certain things4 ,we write of great      
writers1 even of writers whose beauty   
would once have seemed an unholy beauty1
 with rapt sentences like those our     
fathers kept for the beatitudes and     
mysteries of the ,church2 and no matter 
what we believe with our lips1 we       
believe with our hearts that beautiful  
things1 as ,browning said in his one    

prose essay that was not in verse1 have 
'lain burningly on the ,divine hand1'   
and that when time has begun to wither1 
the ,divine hand will fall heavily on   
bad taste and vulgarity4 ,when no man   
believed these things ,william ,blake   
believed them1 and began that preaching 
against the ,philistine1 which is as the
 preaching of the ,middle ,ages against 
the ,saracen4  ,he had learned from     
,jacob ,boehme and from old alchemist   
writers that imagination was the first  
emanation of divinity1 'the body of     
,god1' 'the ,divine members1' and he    
drew the deduction1 which they did not  
draw1 that the imaginative arts were    
therefore the greatest of ,divine       
revelations1 and that the sympathy with 
all living things1 sinful and righteous 
alike1 which the imaginative arts       
awaken1 is that forgiveness of sins     
commanded by ,christ4 ,the reason1 and  
by the reason he meant deductions from  
the observations of the senses1 binds us
 to mortality because it binds us to the

 senses1 and divides us from each other 
by showing us our clashing interests2   
but imagination divides us from         
mortality by the immortality of beauty1 
and binds us to each other by opening   
the secret doors of all hearts4 ,he     
cried again and again that every thing  
that lives is holy1 and that nothing is 
unholy except things that do not        
live--lethargies1 and cruelties1 and    
timidities1 and that denial of          
imagination which is the root they grew 
from in old times4 ,passions1 because   
most living1 are most holy--and this was
 a scandalous paradox in his time--and  
man shall enter eternity borne upon     
their wings4  ,and he understood this so
 literally that certain drawings to     
,vala1 had he carried them beyond the   
first faint pencillings1 the first faint
 washes of colour1 would have been a    
pretty scandal to his time and to our   
time4 ,the sensations of this 'foolish  
body1' this 'phantom of the earth and   
water1' were in themselves but          

half-living things1 'vegetative' things1
 but passion that 'eternal glory' made  
them a part of the body of ,god4  ,this 
philosophy kept him more simply a poet  
than any poet of his time1 for it made  
him content to express every beautiful  
feeling that came into his head without 
troubling about its utility or chaining 
it to any utility4 ,sometimes one feels1
 even when one is reading poets of a    
better time--,tennyson or ,wordsworth1  
let us say--that they have troubled the 
energy and simplicity of their          
imaginative passions by asking whether  
they were for the helping or for the    
hindrance of the world1 instead of      
believing that all beautiful things have
 'lain burningly on the ,divine hand4'  
,but when one reads ,blake1 it is as    
though the spray of an inexhaustible    
fountain of beauty was blown into our   
faces1 and not merely when one reads the
 ,songs of ,innocence1 or the lyrics he 
wished to call ',the ,ideas of ,good and
 ,evil1' but when one reads those       

',prophetic ,works' in which he spoke   
confusedly and obscurely because he     
spoke of things for whose speaking he   
could find no models in the world about 
him4 ,he was a symbolist who had to     
invent his symbols2 and his counties of 
,england1 with their correspondence to  
tribes of ,israel1 and his mountains and
 rivers1 with their correspondence to   
parts of a man's body1 are arbitrary as 
some of the symbolism in the ,axl of the
 symbolist ,villiers ,de ,l',isle ,adam 
is arbitrary1 while they mix incongruous
 things as ,axl does not4 ,he was a man 
crying out for a mythology1 and trying  
to make one because he could not find   
one to his hand4 ,had he been a         
,catholic of ,dante's time he would have
 been well content with ,mary and the   
angels2 or had he been a scholar of our 
time he would have taken his symbols    
where ,wagner took his1 from ,norse     
mythology2 or have followed1 with the   
help of ,prof4 ,rhys1 that pathway into 
,welsh mythology which he found in      

',jerusalem'2 or have gone to           
,ireland--and he was probably an        
,irishman--and chosen for his symbols   
the sacred mountains1 along whose sides 
the peasant still sees enchanted fires1 
and the divinities which have not faded 
from the belief1 if they have faded from
 the prayers of simple hearts2 and have 
spoken without mixing incongruous things
 because he spoke of things that had    
been long steeped in emotion2 and have  
been less obscure because a traditional 
mythology stood on the threshold of his 
meaning and on the margin of his sacred 
darkness4 ,if ',enitharmon' had been    
named ,freia1 or ,gwydeon1 or ,danu1 and
 made live in ,ancient ,norway1 or      
,ancient ,wales1 or ,ancient ,ireland1  
we would have forgotten that her maker  
was a mystic2 and the hymn of her       
harping1 that is in ,vala1 would but    
have reminded us of many ancient hymns4 
',the joy of woman is the death of her  
beloved1   ,who dies for love of her1   
,in torments of fierce jealousy and     

pangs of adoration4   ,the lover's night
 bears on my song1   ,and the nine      
spheres rejoice beneath my powerful     
control4    ,they sing unwearied to the 
notes of my immortal hand4   ,the       
solemn1 silent moon   ,reverberates the 
long harmony sounding upon my limbs4    
,the birds and beasts rejoice and play1 
,and every one seeks for his mate to    
prove his inmost joy4    ,furious and   
terrible they rend the nether deep1     
,the deep lifts up his rugged head1     
,and lost in infinite hovering wings    
vanishes with a cry4   ,the fading cry  
is ever dying1   ,the living voice is   
ever living in its inmost joy4'  #ahig4 
,,william ,,blake ,,and ,,his           
,,illustrations ,,to ,,the ,,divine     
,,comedy   ,i4 ,,his ,,opinions ,,upon  
,,art  ,william ,blake was the first    
writer of modern times to preach the    
indissoluble marriage of all great art  
with symbol4 ,there had been allegorists
 and teachers of allegory in plenty1 but
 the symbolic imagination1 or1 as ,blake

 preferred to call it1 'vision1' is not 
allegory1 being 'a representation of    
what actually exists really and         
unchangeably4' ,a symbol is indeed the  
only possible expression of some        
invisible essence1 a transparent lamp   
about a spiritual flame2 while allegory 
is one of many possible representations 
of an embodied thing1 or familiar       
principle1 and belongs to fancy and not 
to imagination3 the one is a revelation1
 the other an amusement4 ,it is happily 
no part of my purpose to expound in     
detail the relations he believed to     
exist between symbol and mind1 for in   
doing so ,i should come upon not a few  
doctrines which1 though they have not   
been difficult to many simple persons1  
ascetics wrapped in skins1 women who had
 cast away all common knowledge1        
peasants dreaming by their sheepfolds   
upon the hills1 are full of obscurity to
 the man of modern culture2 but it is   
necessary to just touch upon these      
relations1 because in them was the      

fountain of much of the practice and of 
all the precept of his artistic life4   
,if a man would enter into ',noah's     
rainbow1' he has written1 and 'make a   
friend' of one of 'the images of wonder'
 which dwell there1 and which always    
entreat him 'to leave mortal things1'   
'then would he arise from the grave and 
meet the ,lord in the air'2 and by this 
rainbow1 this sign of a covenant granted
 to him who is with ,shem and ,japhet1  
'painting1 poetry and music1' 'the three
 powers in man of conversing with       
,paradise which the flood of time and   
space did not sweep away1' ,blake       
represented the shapes of beauty        
haunting our moments of inspiration3    
shapes held by most for the frailest of 
ephemera1 but by him for a people older 
than the world1 citizens of eternity1   
appearing and reappearing in the minds  
of artists and of poets1 creating all we
 touch and see by casting distorted     
images of themselves upon 'the vegetable
 glass of nature'2 and because beings1  

none the less symbols1 blossoms1 as it  
were1 growing from invisible immortal   
roots1 hands1 as it were1 pointing the  
way into some divine labyrinth4 ,if 'the
 world of imagination' was 'the world of
 eternity1' as this doctrine implied1 it
 was of less importance to know men and 
nature than to distinguish the beings   
and substances of imagination from those
 of a more perishable kind1 created by  
the phantasy1 in uninspired moments1 out
 of memory and whim2 and this could best
 be done by purifying one's mind1 as    
with a flame1 in study of the works of  
the great masters1 who were great       
because they had been granted by divine 
favour a vision of the unfallen world   
from which others are kept apart by the 
flaming sword that turns every way2 and 
by flying from the painters who studied 
'the vegetable glass' for its own sake1 
and not to discover there the shadows of
 imperishable beings and substances1 and
 who entered into their own minds1 not  
to make the unfallen world a test of all

 they heard and saw and felt with the   
senses1 but to cover the naked spirit   
with 'the rotten rags of memory' of     
older sensations4 ,the struggle of the  
first part of his life had been to      
distinguish between these two schools1  
and to cleave always to the ,florentine1
 and so to escape the fascination of    
those who seemed to him to offer the    
sleep of nature to a spirit weary with  
the labours of inspiration2 but it was  
only after his return to ,london from   
,felpham in #ahjd that he finally       
escaped from 'temptations and           
perturbations' which sought to destroy  
'the imaginative power' at 'the hands of
 ,venetian and ,flemish ,demons4' ',the 
spirit of ,titian'--and one must always 
remember that he had only seen poor     
engravings1 and what his disciple1      
,palmer1 has called 'picture-dealers'   
,titians'--'was particularly active in  
raising doubts concerning the           
possibility of executing without a      
model2 and when once he had raised the  

doubt it became easy for him to snatch  
away the vision time after time'2 and   
,blake's imagination 'weakened' and     
'darkened' until a 'memory of nature and
 of the pictures of various schools     
possessed his mind1 instead of          
appropriate execution' flowing from the 
vision itself4 ,but now he wrote1 ',o   
glory1 and ,o delight6 ,i have entirely 
reduced that spectrous fiend to his     
station'--he had overcome the merely    
reasoning and sensual portion of the    
mind--'whose annoyance has been the ruin
 of my labours for the last twenty years
 of my life4444 ,i speak with perfect   
confidence and certainty of the fact    
which has passed upon me4               
,nebuchadnezzar had seven times passed  
over him1 ,i have had twenty2 thank ,god
 ,i was not altogether a beast as he    
was4444 ,suddenly1 on the day after     
visiting the ,truchsessian ,gallery of  
pictures'--this was a gallery containing
 pictures by ,albert ,drer and by the   
great ,florentines--',i was again       

enlightened with the light ,i enjoyed in
 my youth1 and which had for exactly    
twenty years been closed from me1 as by 
a door and window shutters4444 ,excuse  
my enthusiasm1 or rather madness1 for ,i
 am really drunk with intellectual      
vision whenever ,i take a pencil or     
graver in my hand1 as ,i used to be in  
my youth4'  ,this letter may have been  
the expression of a moment's enthusiasm1
 but was more probably rooted in one of 
those intuitions of coming technical    
power which every creator feels1 and    
learns to rely upon2 for all his        
greatest work was done1 and the         
principles of his art were formulated1  
after this date4 ,except a word here and
 there1 his writings hitherto had not   
dealt with the principles of art except 
remotely and by implication2 but now he 
wrote much upon them1 and not in obscure
 symbolic verse1 but in emphatic prose1 
and explicit if not very poetical rhyme4
 ,in his ,descriptive ,catalogue1 in    
,the ,address to the ,public1 in the    

notes on ,sir ,joshua ,reynolds1 in ,the
 ,book of ,moonlight--of which some not 
very dignified rhymes alone remain--in  
beautiful detached passages in ,the     
,,ms4 ,book1 he explained spiritual art1
 and praised the painters of ,florence  
and their influence1 and cursed all that
 has come of ,venice and ,holland4 ,the 
limitation of his view was from the very
 intensity of his vision2 he was a too  
literal realist of imagination1 as      
others are of nature2 and because he    
believed that the figures seen by the   
mind's eye1 when exalted by inspiration1
 were 'eternal existences1' symbols of  
divine essences1 he hated every grace of
 style that might obscure their         
lineaments4 ,to wrap them about in      
reflected lights was to do this1 and to 
dwell over-fondly upon any softness of  
hair or flesh was to dwell upon that    
which was least permanent and least     
characteristic1 for ',the great and     
golden rule of art1 as of life1 is this3
 that the more distinct1 sharp and wiry 

the boundary-line1 the more perfect the 
work of art2 and the less keen and      
sharp1 the greater is the evidence of   
weak imitation1 plagiarism and          
bungling4' ,inspiration was to see the  
permanent and characteristic in all     
forms1 and if you had it not1 you must  
needs imitate with a languid mind the   
things you saw or remembered1 and so    
sink into the sleep of nature where all 
is soft and melting4 ',great inventors  
in all ages knew this4 ,protogenes and  
,apelles knew each other by their line4 
,raphael and ,michael ,angelo and       
,albert ,drer are known by this and this
 alone4 ,how do we distinguish the owl  
from the beast1 the horse from the ox1  
but by the bounding outline8 ,how do we 
distinguish one face or countenance from
 another but by the bounding-line and   
its infinite inflections and movements8 
,what is it that builds a house and     
plants a garden but the definite and    
determinate8 ,what is it that           
distinguished honesty from knavery but  

the hard and wiry line of rectitude and 
certainty in the actions and intentions8
 ,leave out this line and you leave out 
life itself2 and all is chaos again1 and
 the line of the ,almighty must be drawn
 out upon it before man or beast can    
exist4' ,he even insisted that          
'colouring does not depend upon where   
the colours are put1 but upon where the 
light and dark are put1 and all depends 
upon the form or outline'--meaning1 ,i  
suppose1 that a colour gets its         
brilliance or its depth from being in   
light or in shadow4 ,he does not mean by
 outline the bounding-line dividing a   
form from its background1 as one of his 
commentators has thought1 but the line  
that divides it from surrounding space1 
and unless you have an overmastering    
sense of this you cannot draw true      
beauty at all1 but only 'the beauty that
 is appended to folly1' a beauty of mere
 voluptuous softness1 'a lamentable     
accident of the mortal and perishing    
life1' for 'the beauty proper for       

sublime art is lineaments1 or forms and 
features capable of being the           
receptacles of intellect1' and 'the face
 or limbs that alter least from youth to
 old age are the face and limbs of the  
greatest beauty and perfection4' ,his   
praise of a severe art had been beyond  
price had his age rested a moment to    
listen1 in the midst of its enthusiasm  
for ,correggio and the later            
,renaissance1 for ,bartolozzi and for   
,stothard2 and yet in his visionary     
realism1 and in his enthusiasm for what1
 after all1 is perhaps the greatest art1
 and a necessary part of every picture  
that is art at all1 he forgot how he who
 wraps the vision in lights and shadows1
 in iridescent or glowing colour1 having
 in the midst of his labour many little 
visions of these secondary essences1    
until form be half lost in pattern1 may 
compel the canvas or paper to become    
itself a symbol of some not indefinite  
because unsearchable essence2 for is not
 the ,bacchus and ,ariadne of ,titian a 

talisman as powerfully charged with     
intellectual virtue as though it were a 
jewel-studded door of the city seen on  
,patmos8  ,to cover the imperishable    
lineaments of beauty with shadows and   
reflected lights was to fall into the   
power of his ',vala1' the indolent      
fascination of nature1 the woman        
divinity who is so often described in   
'the prophetic books' as 'sweet         
pestilence1' and whose children weave   
webs to take the souls of men2 but there
 was yet a more lamentable chance1 for  
nature has also a 'masculine portion' or
 'spectre' which kills instead of merely
 hiding1 and is continually at war with 
inspiration4 ,to 'generalize' forms and 
shadows1 to 'smooth out' spaces and     
lines in obedience to 'laws of          
composition1' and of painting2 founded1 
not upon imagination1 which always      
thirsts for variety and delights in     
freedom1 but upon reasoning from        
sensation which is always seeking to    
reduce everything to a lifeless and     

slavish uniformity2 as the popular art  
of ,blake's day had done1 and as he     
understood ,sir ,joshua ,reynolds to    
advise1 was to fall into ',entuthon     
,benithon1' or 'the ,lake of ,udan      
,adan1' or some other of those regions  
where the imagination and the flesh are 
alike dead1 that he names by so many    
resonant phantastical names4 ',general  
knowledge is remote knowledge1' he      
wrote2 'it is in particulars that wisdom
 consists1 and happiness too4 ,both in  
art and life general masses are as much 
art as a pasteboard man is human4 ,every
 man has eyes1 nose and mouth2 this     
every idiot knows4 ,but he who enters   
into and discriminates most minutely the
 manners and intentions1 the characters 
in all their branches1 is the alone wise
 or sensible man1 and on this           
discrimination all art is founded4444   
,as poetry admits not a letter that is  
insignificant1 so painting admits not a 
grain of sand or a blade of grass       
insignificant1 much less an             

insignificant blot or blur4'  ,against  
another desire of his time1 derivative  
also from what he has called 'corporeal 
reason1' the desire for a 'tepid        
moderation1' for a lifeless 'sanity in  
both art and life1' he had protested    
years before with a paradoxical         
violence4 ',the roadway of excess leads 
to the palace of wisdom1' and we must   
only 'bring out weight and measure in   
time of dearth4' ,this protest1 carried1
 in the notes on ,sir ,joshua ,reynolds1
 to the point of dwelling with pleasure 
on the thought that ',the ,lives of the 
,painters say that ,raphael died of     
dissipation1' because dissipation is    
better than emotional penury1 seemed as 
important to his old age as to his      
youth4 ,he taught it to his disciples1  
and one finds it in its purely artistic 
shape in a diary written by ,samuel     
,palmer1 in #ahbd3 ',excess is the      
essential vivifying spirit1 vital spark1
 embalming spice of the finest art4     
,there are many mediums in the          

means--none1 oh1 not a jot1 not a shadow
 of a jot1 in the end of great art4 ,in 
a picture whose merit is to be          
excessively brilliant1 it can't be too  
brilliant1 but individual tints may be  
too brilliant4444 ,we must not begin    
with medium1 but think always on excess 
and only use medium to make excess more 
abundantly excessive4'  ,these three    
primary commands1 to seek a determinate 
outline1 to avoid a generalized         
treatment1 and to desire always         
abundance and exuberance1 were insisted 
upon with vehement anger1 and their     
opponents called again and again        
'demons' and 'villains1' 'hired' by the 
wealthy and the idle2 but in private1   
,palmer has told us1 he could find      
'sources of delight throughout the whole
 range of art1' and was ever ready to   
praise excellence in any school1        
finding1 doubtless1 among friends1 no   
need for the emphasis of exaggeration4  
,there is a beautiful passage in        
',jerusalem' in which the merely mortal 

part of the mind1 'the spectre1' creates
 'pyramids of pride1' and 'pillars in   
the deepest hell to reach the heavenly  
arches1' and seeks to discover wisdom in
 'the spaces between the stars1' not 'in
 the stars1' where it is1 but the       
immortal part makes all his labours     
vain1 and turns his pyramids to 'grains 
of sand1' his 'pillars' to 'dust on the 
fly's wing1' and makes of 'his starry   
heavens a moth of gold and silver       
mocking his anxious grasp4' ,so when    
man's desire to rest from spiritual     
labour1 and his thirst to fill his art  
with mere sensation and memory1 seem    
upon the point of triumph1 some miracle 
transforms them to a new inspiration2   
and here and there among the pictures   
born of sensation and memory is the     
murmuring of a new ritual1 the          
glimmering of new talismans and symbols4
  ,it was during and after the writing  
of these opinions that ,blake did the   
various series of pictures which have   
brought him the bulk of his fame4 ,he   

had already completed the illustrations 
to ,young's ,night ,thoughts--in which  
the great sprawling figures1 a little   
wearisome even with the luminous colours
 of the original water-colour1 became   
nearly intolerable in plain black and   
white--and almost all the illustrations 
to 'the prophetic books1' which have an 
energy like that of the elements1 but   
are rather rapid sketches taken while   
some phantasmic procession swept over   
him1 than elaborate compositions1 and in
 whose shadowy adventures one finds not 
merely1 as did ,dr4 ,garth ,wilkinson1  
'the hells of the ancient people1 the   
,anakim1 the ,nephalim1 and the ,rephaim
 444 gigantic petrifactions from which  
the fires of lust and intense selfish   
passion have long dissipated what was   
animal and vital'2 not merely the       
shadows cast by the powers who had      
closed the light from him as 'with a    
door and window shutters1' but the      
shadows of those who gave them battle4  
,he did now1 however1 the many designs  

to ,milton1 of which ,i have only seen  
those to ,paradise ,regained2 the       
reproductions of those to ,comus1       
published1 ,i think1 by ,mr4 ,quaritch2 
and the three or four to ,paradise      
,lost1 engraved by ,bell ,scott--a      
series of designs which one good judge  
considers his greatest work2 the        
illustrations to ,blair's ,grave1 whose 
gravity and passion struggle with the   
mechanical softness and trivial         
smoothness of ,schiavonetti's engraving2
 the illustrations to ,thornton's       
,virgil1 whose influence is manifest in 
the work of the little group of         
landscape-painters who gathered about   
him in his old age and delighted to call
 him master4 ,the member of the group1  
whom ,i have already so often quoted1   
has alone praised worthily these        
illustrations to the first eclogue3     
',there is in all such a misty and      
dreamy glimmer as penetrates and kindles
 the inmost soul and gives complete and 
unreserved delight1 unlike the gaudy    

daylight of this world4 ,they are like  
all this wonderful artist's work1 the   
drawing aside of the fleshly curtain1   
and the glimpse which all the most holy1
 studious saints and sages have enjoyed1
 of the rest which remains to the people
 of ,god4' ,now1 too1 he did the great  
series1 the crowning work of his life1  
the illustrations to ,the ,book of ,job 
and the illustrations to ,the ,divine   
,comedy4 ,hitherto he had protested     
against the mechanical 'dots and        
lozenges' and 'blots and blurs' of      
,woollett and ,strange1 but had himself 
used both 'dot and lozenge1' 'blot and  
blur1' though always in subordination   
'to a firm and determinate outline'2 but
 in ,marc ,antonio1 certain of whose    
engravings he was shown by ,linnell1 he 
found a style full of delicate lines1 a 
style where all was living and          
energetic1 strong and subtle4 ,and      
almost his last words1 a letter written 
upon his death-bed1 attack the 'dots and
 lozenges' with even more than usually  

quaint symbolism1 and praise expressive 
lines4 ',i know that the majority of    
,englishmen are bound by the indefinite 
444 a line is a line in its minutest    
particulars1 straight or crooked4 ,it is
 itself not intermeasurable by anything 
else 444 but since the ,french          
,revolution'--since the reign of reason 
began1 that is--',englishmen are all    
intermeasurable with one another1       
certainly a happy state of agreement in 
which ,i do not agree4' ,the ,dante     
series occupied the last years of his   
life2 even when too weak to get out of  
bed he worked on1 propped up with the   
great drawing-book before him4 ,he      
sketched a hundred designs1 but left all
 incomplete1 some very greatly so1 and  
partly engraved seven plates1 of which  
the ',francesca and ,paolo' is the most 
finished4 ,it is not1 ,i think1 inferior
 to any but the finest in the ,job1 if  
indeed to them1 and shows in its        
perfection ,blake's mastery over        
elemental things1 the swirl in which the

 lost spirits are hurried1 'a watery    
flame' he would have called it1 the     
haunted waters and the huddling shapes4 
,in the illustrations of ,purgatory     
there is a serene beauty1 and one finds 
his ,dante and ,virgil climbing among   
the rough rocks under a cloudy sun1 and 
in their sleep upon the smooth steps    
towards the summit1 a placid1 marmoreal1
 tender1 starry rapture4  ,all in this  
great series are in some measure        
powerful and moving1 and not1 as it is  
customary to say of the work of ,blake1 
because a flaming imagination pierces   
through a cloudy and indecisive         
technique1 but because they have the    
only excellence possible in any art1 a  
mastery over artistic expression4 ,the  
technique of ,blake was imperfect1      
incomplete1 as is the technique of      
well-nigh all artists who have striven  
to bring fires from remote summits2 but 
where his imagination is perfect and    
complete1 his technique has a like      
perfection1 a like completeness4 ,he    

strove to embody more subtle raptures1  
more elaborate intuitions than any      
before him2 his imagination and         
technique are more broken and strained  
under a great burden than the           
imagination and technique of any other  
master4 ',i am1' wrote ,blake1 'like    
others1 just equal in invention and     
execution4' ,and again1 ',no man can    
improve an original invention2 nor can  
an original invention exist without     
execution1 organized1 delineated and    
articulated either by ,god or man 444 ,i
 have heard people say1 ,give me the    
ideas2 it is no matter what words you   
put them into2 and others say1 ,give me 
the designs2 it is no matter for the    
execution4444 ,ideas cannot be given but
 in their minutely appropriate words1   
nor can a design be made without its    
minutely appropriate execution4' ,living
 in a time when technique and           
imagination are continually perfect and 
complete1 because they no longer strive 
to bring fire from heaven1 we forget how

 imperfect and incomplete they were in  
even the greatest masters1 in           
,botticelli1 in ,orcagna1 and in        
,giotto4  ,the errors in the handiwork  
of exalted spirits are as the more      
phantastical errors in their lives2 as  
,coleridge's opium cloud2 as ,villiers  
,de ,l',isle ,adam's candidature for the
 throne of ,greece2 as ,blake's anger   
against causes and purposes he but half 
understood2 as the flickering madness an
 ,eastern scripture would allow in      
august dreamers2 for he who half lives  
in eternity endures a rending of the    
structures of the mind1 a crucifixion of
 the intellectual body4   ,,ii4 ,,his   
,,opinions ,,on ,,dante  ,as ,blake sat 
bent over the great drawing-book1 in    
which he made his designs to ,the       
,divine ,comedy1 he was very certain    
that he and ,dante represented spiritual
 states which face one another in an    
eternal enmity4 ,dante1 because a great 
poet1 was 'inspired by the ,holy        
,ghost'2 but his inspiration was mingled

 with a certain philosophy1 blown up out
 of his age1 which ,blake held for      
mortal and the enemy of immortal things1
 and which from the earliest times has  
sat in high places and ruled the world4 
,this philosophy was the philosophy of  
soldiers1 of men of the world1 of       
priests busy with government1 of all    
who1 because of the absorption in active
 life1 have been persuaded to judge and 
to punish1 and partly also1 he admitted1
 the philosophy of ,christ1 who in      
descending into the world had to take on
 the world2 who1 in being born of ,mary1
 a symbol of the law in ,blake's        
symbolic language1 had to 'take after   
his mother1' and drive the              
money-changers out of the ,temple4      
,opposed to this was another philosophy1
 not made by men of action1 drudges of  
time and space1 but by ,christ when     
wrapped in the divine essence1 and by   
artists and poets1 who are taught by the
 nature of their craft to sympathize    
with all living things1 and who1 the    

more pure and fragrant is their lamp1   
pass the further from all limitations1  
to come at last to forget good and evil 
in an absorbing vision of the happy and 
the unhappy4 ,the one philosophy was    
worldly1 and established for the        
ordering of the body and the fallen     
will1 and so long as it did not call its
 'laws of prudence' 'the laws of ,god1' 
was a necessity1 because 'you cannot    
have liberty in this world without what 
you call moral virtue'2 the other was   
divine1 and established for the peace of
 the imagination and the unfallen will1 
and1 even when obeyed with a too literal
 reverence1 could make men sin against  
no higher principality than prudence4   
,he called the followers of the first   
philosophy pagans1 no matter by what    
name they knew themselves1 because the  
pagans1 as he understood the word pagan1
 believed more in the outward life1 and 
in what he called 'war1 princedom1 and  
victory1' than in the secret life of the
 spirit2 and the followers of the second

 philosophy ,christians1 because only   
those whose sympathies had been enlarged
 and instructed by art and poetry could 
obey the ,christian command of unlimited
 forgiveness4 ,blake had already found  
this 'pagan' philosophy in ,swedenborg1 
in ,milton1 in ,wordsworth1 in ,sir     
,joshua ,reynolds1 in many persons1 and 
it had roused him so constantly and to  
such angry paradox that its overthrow   
became the signal passion of his life1  
and filled all he did and thought with  
the excitement of a supreme issue4 ,its 
kingdom was bound to grow weaker so soon
 as life began to lose a little in crude
 passion and nave tumult1 but ,blake was
 the first to announce its successor1   
and he did this1 as must needs be with  
revolutionists who have 'the law' for   
'mother1' with a firm conviction that   
the things his opponents held white were
 indeed black1 and that the things they 
held black1 white2 with a strong        
persuasion that all busy with government
 are men darkness and 'something other  

than human life'2 one is reminded of    
,shelley1 who was the next to take up   
the cry1 though with a less abundant    
philosophic faculty1 but still more of  
,nietzsche1 whose thought flows always1 
though with an even more violent        
current1 in the bed ,blake's thought has
 worn4  ,the kingdom that was passing   
was1 he held1 the kingdom of the ,tree  
of ,knowledge2 the kingdom that was     
coming was the kingdom of the ,tree of  
,life3 men who ate from the ,tree of    
,knowledge wasted their days in anger   
against one another1 and in taking one  
another captive in great nets2 men who  
sought their food among the green leaves
 of the ,tree of ,life condemned none   
but the unimaginative and the idle1 and 
those who forget that even love and     
death and old age are an imaginative    
art4  ,in these opposing kingdoms is the
 explanation of the petulant sayings he 
wrote on the margins of the great       
sketch-book1 and of those others1 still 
more petulant1 which ,crabb ,robinson   

has recorded in his diary4 ,the sayings 
about the forgiveness of sins have no   
need for further explanation1 and are in
 contrast with the attitude of that     
excellent commentator1 ,herr ,hettinger1
 who1 though ,dante swooned from pity at
 the tale of ,francesca1 will only      
'sympathize' with her 'to a certain     
extent1' being taken in a theological   
net4 ',it seems as if ,dante1' ,blake   
wrote1 'supposes ,god was something     
superior to the ,father of ,jesus2 for  
if ,he gives rain to the evil and the   
good1 and ,his sun to the just and the  
unjust1 ,he can never have builded      
,dante's ,hell1 nor the ,hell of the    
,bible1 as our parsons explain it4 ,it  
must have been framed by the dark spirit
 itself1 and so ,i understand it4' ,and 
again1 ',whatever task is of vengeance  
and whatever is against forgiveness of  
sin is not of the ,father but of ,satan1
 the accuser1 the father of ,hell4' ,and
 again1 and this time to ,crabb         
,robinson1 ',dante saw devils where ,i  

saw none4 ,i see good only4' ',i have   
never known a very bad man who had not  
something very good about him4' ,this   
forgiveness was not the forgiveness of  
the theologian who has received a       
commandment from afar off1 but of the   
poet and artist1 who believes he has    
been taught1 in a mystical vision1 'that
 the imagination is the man himself1'   
and believes he has discovered in the   
practice of his art that without a      
perfect sympathy there is no perfect    
imagination1 and therefore no perfect   
life4 ,at another moment he called      
,dante 'an atheist1 a mere politician   
busied about this world1 as ,milton was1
 till1 in his old age1 returned to ,god 
whom he had had in his childhood4'      
',everything is atheism1' he has already
 explained1 'which assumed the reality  
of the natural and unspiritual world4'  
,dante1 he held1 assumed its reality    
when he made obedience to its laws a    
condition of man's happiness hereafter1 
and he set ,swedenborg beside ,dante in 

misbelief for calling ,nature 'the      
ultimate of ,heaven1' a lowest rung1 as 
it were1 of ,jacob's ladder1 instead of 
a net woven by ,satan to entangle our   
wandering joys and bring our hearts into
 captivity4 ,there are certain curious  
unfinished diagrams scattered here and  
there among the now separated pages of  
the sketch-book1 and of these there is  
one which1 had it had all its concentric
 rings filled with names1 would have    
been a systematic exposition of his     
animosities and of their various        
intensity4 ,it represents ,paradise1 and
 in the midst1 where ,dante emerges from
 the earthly ,paradise1 is written      
',homer1' and in the next circle        
',swedenborg1' and on the margin these  
words3 ',everything in ,dante's         
,paradise shows that he has made the    
earth the foundation of all1 and its    
goddess ,nature1 memory1' memory of     
sensations1 'not the ,holy ,ghost4444   
,round ,purgatory is ,paradise1 and     
round ,paradise vacuum4 ,homer is the   

centre of all1 ,i mean the poetry of the
 heathen4' ,the statement that round    
,paradise is vacuum is a proof of the   
persistence of his ideas1 and of his    
curiously literal understanding of his  
own symbols2 for it is but another form 
of the charge made against ,milton many 
years before in ,the ,marriage of       
,heaven and ,hell4 ',in ,milton the     
,father is destiny1 the son a ratio of  
the five senses1' ,blake's definition of
 the reason which is the enemy of the   
imagination1 'and the ,holy ,ghost      
vacuum4' ,dante1 like other medieval    
mystics1 symbolized the highest order of
 created beings by the fixed stars1 and 
,god by the darkness beyond them1 the   
,primum ,mobile4 ,blake1 absorbed in his
 very different vision1 in which ,god   
took always a human shape1 believed that
 to think of ,god under a symbol drawn  
from the outer world was in itself      
idolatry1 but that to imagine ,him as an
 unpeopled immensity was to think of    
,him under the one symbol furthest from 

,his essence--it being a creation of the
 ruining reason1 'generalizing' away    
'the minute particulars of life4'       
,instead of seeking ,god in the deserts 
of time and space1 in exterior          
immensities1 in what he called 'the     
abstract void1' he believed that the    
further he dropped behind him memory of 
time and space1 reason builded upon     
sensation1 morality founded for the     
ordering of the world2 and the more he  
was absorbed in emotion2 and1 above all1
 in emotion escaped from the impulse of 
bodily longing and the restraints of    
bodily reason1 in artistic emotion2 the 
nearer did he come to ,eden's 'breathing
 garden1' to use his beautiful phrase1  
and to the unveiled face of ,god4 ,no   
worthy symbol of ,god existed but the   
inner world1 the true humanity1 to whose
 various aspects he gave many names1    
',jerusalem1' ',liberty1' ',eden1' ',the
 ,divine ,vision1' ',the ,body of ,god1'
 ',the ,human ,form ,divine1' ',the     
,divine ,members1' and whose most       

intimate expression was art and poetry4 
,he always sang of ,god under this      
symbol3    ',for ,mercy1 ,pity1 ,peace1 
and ,love     ,is ,god ,our ,father     
dear2   ,and ,mercy1 ,pity1 ,peace1 and 
,love     ,is man1 ,his child and care4 
,for ,mercy has a human heart2     ,pity
 a human face2   ,and ,love the human   
form divine2     ,and ,peace1 the human 
dress4    ,then every man of every      
clime1     ,that prays in his distress1 
,prays to the human form divine--       
,love1 ,mercy1 ,pity1 ,peace4'          
,whenever he gave this symbol a         
habitation in space he set it in the    
sun1 the father of light and life2 and  
set in the darkness beyond the stars1   
where light and life die away1 ,og and  
,anak and the giants that were of old1  
and the iron throne of ,satan4  ,by thus
 contrasting ,blake and ,dante by the   
light of ,blake's paradoxical wisdom1   
and as though there was no important    
truth hung from ,dante's beam of the    
balance1 ,i but seek to interpret a     

little-understood philosophy rather than
 one incorporate in the thought and     
habits of ,christendom4 ,every          
philosophy has half its truth from times
 and generations2 and to us one-half of 
the philosophy of ,dante is less living 
than his poetry1 while the truth ,blake 
preached and sang and painted is the    
root of the cultivated life1 of the     
fragile perfect blossom of the world    
born in ages of leisure and peace1 and  
never yet to last more than a little    
season2 the life those ,phacians1 who   
told ,odysseus that they had set their  
hearts in nothing but in 'the dance and 
changes of raiment1 and love and sleep1'
 lived before ,poseidon heaped a        
mountain above them2 the lives of all   
who1 having eaten of the ,tree of ,life1
 love1 more than did the barbarous ages 
when none had time to live1 'the minute 
particulars of life1' the little        
fragments of space and time1 which are  
wholly flooded by beautiful emotion     
because they are so little they are     

hardly of time and space at all4 ',every
 space smaller than a globule of man's  
blood1' he wrote1 'opens into eternity  
of which this vegetable earth is but a  
shadow4' ,and again1 ',every time less  
than a pulsation of the artery is equal'
 in its tenor and value 'to six thousand
 years1 for in this period the poet's   
work is done1 and all the great events  
of time start forth1 and are conceived3 
in such a period1 within a moment1 a    
pulsation of the artery4' ,dante1       
indeed1 taught1 in the ',purgatorio1'   
that sin and virtue are alike from love1
 and that love is from ,god2 but this   
love he would restrain by a complex     
eternal law1 a complex external ,church4
 ,blake upon the other hand cried scorn 
upon the whole spectacle of external    
things1 a vision to pass away in a      
moment1 and preached the cultivated     
life1 the internal ,church which has no 
laws but beauty1 rapture and labour4 ',i
 know of no other ,christianity1 and of 
no other gospel1 than the liberty1 both 

of body and mind1 to exercise the divine
 arts of imagination1 the real and      
eternal world of which this vegetable   
universe is but a faint shadow1 and in  
which we shall live in our eternal or   
imaginative bodies when these vegetable 
mortal bodies are no more4 ,the         
,apostles knew of no other gospel4 ,what
 are all their spiritual gifts8 ,what is
 the divine spirit8 ,is the ,holy ,ghost
 any other than an intellectual         
fountain8 ,what is the harvest of the   
gospel and its labours8 ,what is the    
talent which it is a curse to hide8     
,what are the treasures of heaven which 
we are to lay up for ourselves8 ,are    
they any other than mental studies and  
performances8 ,what are all the gifts of
 the gospel1 are they not all mental    
gifts8 ,is ,god a spirit who must be    
worshipped in spirit and truth8 ,are not
 the gifts of the spirit everything to  
man8 ,o ye religious6 discountenance    
every one among you who shall pretend to
 despise art and science4 ,i call upon  

you in the name of ,jesus6 ,what is the 
life of man but art and science8 ,is it 
meat and drink8 ,is not the body more   
than raiment8 ,what is mortality but the
 things relating to the body which dies8
 ,what is immortality but the things    
relating to the spirit which lives      
immortally8 ,what is the joy of ,heaven 
but improvement in the things of the    
spirit8 ,what are the pains of ,hell but
 ignorance1 idleness1 bodily lust1 and  
the devastation of the things of the    
spirit8 ,answer this for yourselves1 and
 expel from amongst you those who       
pretend to despise the labours of art   
and science1 which alone are the labours
 of the gospel4 ,is not this plain and  
manifest to the thought8 ,can you think 
at all1 and not pronounce heartily that 
to labour in knowledge is to build      
,jerusalem1 and to despise knowledge is 
to despise ,jerusalem and her builders8 
,and remember1 he who despises and mocks
 a mental gift in another1 calling it   
pride1 and selfishness1 and sin1 mocks  

,jesus1 the giver of every mental gift1 
which always appear to the              
ignorance-loving hypocrites as sins4    
,but that which is sin in the sight of  
cruel man is not sin in the sight of our
 kind ,god4 ,let every ,christian as    
much as in him lies engage himself      
openly and publicly before all the world
 in some mental pursuit for the building
 of ,jerusalem4' ,i have given the whole
 of this long passage because1 though   
the very keystone of his thought1 it is 
little known1 being sunk1 like nearly   
all of his most profound thoughts1 in   
the mysterious prophetic books4 ,obscure
 about much else1 they are always lucid 
on this one point1 and return to it     
again and again4 ',i care not whether a 
man is good or bad1' are the words they 
put into the mouth of ,god1 'all ,i care
 is whether he is a wise man or a fool4 
,go put off holiness and put on         
intellect4' ,this cultivated life1 which
 seems to us so artificial a thing1 is  
really1 according to them1 the laborious

 re-discovery of the golden age1 of the 
primeval simplicity1 of the simple world
 in which ,christ taught and lived1 and 
its lawlessness is the lawlessness of   
,him 'who being all virtue1 acted from  
impulse and not from rules1'    ,and his
 seventy disciples sent   ,against      
religion and government4  ,the          
historical ,christ was indeed no more   
than the supreme symbol of the artistic 
imagination1 in which1 with every       
passion wrought to perfect beauty by art
 and poetry1 we shall live1 when the    
body has passed away for the last time2 
but before that hour man must labour    
through many lives and many deaths4     
',men are admitted into heaven not      
because they have curbed and governed   
their passions1 but because they have   
cultivated their understandings4 ,the   
treasures of heaven are not negations of
 passion but realities of intellect from
 which the passions emanate uncurbed in 
their eternal glory4 ,the fool shall not
 enter into heaven1 let him be ever so  

holy4 ,holiness is not the price of     
entering into heaven4 ,those who are    
cast out are all those who1 having no   
passions of their own1 because no       
intellect1 have spent their lives in    
curbing and governing other people's    
lives by the various arts of poverty and
 cruelty of all kinds4 ,the modern      
,church crucifies ,christ with the head 
downwards4 ,woe1 woe1 woe to you        
hypocrites4' ,after a time man has 'to  
return to the dark valley whence he came
 and begin his labours anew1' but before
 that return he dwells in the freedom of
 imagination1 in the peace of the       
'divine image1' 'the divine vision1' in 
the peace that passes understanding and 
is the peace of art4 ',i have been very 
near the gates of death1' ,blake wrote  
in his last letter1 'and have returned  
very weak and an old man1 feeble and    
tottering but not in spirit and life1   
not in the real man1 the imagination    
which liveth for ever4 ,in that ,i grow 
stronger and stronger as this foolish   

body decays4444 ,flaxman is gone1 and we
 must all soon follow1 every one to his 
eternal home1 leaving the delusions of  
goddess ,nature and her laws1 to get    
into freedom from all the laws of the   
numbers1' the multiplicity of nature1   
'into the mind in which every one is    
king and priest in his own house4' ,the 
phrase about the king and priest is a   
memory of the crown and mitre set upon  
,dante's head before he entered         
,paradise4 ,our imaginations are but    
fragments of the universal imagination1 
portions of the universal body of ,god1 
and as we enlarge our imagination by    
imaginative sympathy1 and transform with
 the beauty and peace of art1 the       
sorrows and joys of the world1 we put   
off the limited mortal man more and more
 and put on the unlimited 'immortal     
man4' ',as the seed waits eagerly       
watching for its flower and fruit1      
anxious its little soul looks out into  
the clear expanse to see if hungry winds
 are abroad with their invisible array1 

so man looks out in tree1 and herb1 and 
fish1 and bird1 and beast1 collecting up
 the fragments of his immortal body into
 the elemental forms of everything that 
grows4444 ,in pain he sighs1 in pain he 
labours in his universe1 sorrowing in   
birds over the deep1 or howling in the  
wolf over the slain1 and moaning in the 
cattle1 and in the winds4' ,mere        
sympathy for living things is not enough
 because we must learn to separate their
 'infected' from their eternal1 their   
satanic from their divine part2 and this
 can only be done by desiring always    
beauty1 the one mask through which can  
be seen the unveiled eyes of eternity4  
,we must then be artists in all things1 
and understand that love and old age and
 death are first among the arts4 ,in    
this sense he insists that ',christ's   
apostles were artists1' that            
',christianity is ,art1' and that 'the  
whole business of man is the arts4'     
,dante1 who deified law1 selected its   
antagonist1 passion1 as the most        

important of sins1 and made the regions 
where it was punished the largest4      
,blake1 who deified imaginative freedom1
 held 'corporeal reason' for the most   
accursed of things1 because it makes the
 imagination revolt from the sovereignty
 of beauty and pass under the           
sovereignty of corporeal law1 and this  
is 'the captivity in ,egypt4' ,true art 
is expressive and symbolic1 and makes   
every form1 every sound1 every colour1  
every gesture1 a signature of some      
unanalyzable imaginative essence4 ,false
 art is not expressive but mimetic1 not 
from experience but from observation1   
and is the mother of all evil1          
persuading us to save our bodies alive  
at no matter what cost of rapine and    
fraud4 ,true art is the flame of the    
last day1 which begins for every man1   
when he is first moved by beauty1 and   
which seeks to burn all things until    
they 'become infinite and holy4'        
,,iii4 ,,the ,,illustrations ,,of       
,,dante  ,the late ,mr4 ,john ,addington

 ,symonds wrote--in a preface to certain
 ,dante illustrations by ,stradanus1 a  
sixteenth-century artist of no great    
excellence1 published in phototype by   
,mr4 ,unwin in #ahib--that the          
illustrations of ,gustave ,dor1 'in     
spite of glaring artistic defects1 must1
 ,i think1 be reckoned first among      
numerous attempts to translate ,dante's 
conceptions into terms of plastic art4' 
,one can only account for this praise of
 a noisy and demagogic art by supposing 
that a temperament1 strong enough to    
explore with unfailing alertness the    
countless schools and influences of the 
,renaissance in ,italy1 is of necessity 
a little lacking in delicacy of judgment
 and in the finer substances of emotion4
 ,it is more difficult to account for so
 admirable a scholar not only preferring
 these illustrations to the work of what
 he called 'the graceful and affected   
,botticelli1'--although ',dor was fitted
 for his task1 not by dramatic vigour1  
by feeling for beauty1 or by anything   

sternly in sympathy with the supreme    
poet's soul1 but by a very effective    
sense of luminosity and gloom1'--but    
preferring them because 'he created a   
fanciful world1 which makes the movement
 of ,dante's dramatis person            
conceivable1 introducing the ordinary   
intelligence into those vast regions    
thronged with destinies of souls and    
creeds and empires4' ,when the ordinary 
student finds this intelligence in an   
illustrator1 he thinks1 because it is   
his own intelligence1 that it is an     
accurate interpretation of the text1    
while work of the extraordinary         
intelligences is merely an expression of
 their own ideas and feelings4 ,dor and 
,stradanus1 he will tell you1 have given
 us something of the world of ,dante1   
but ,blake and ,botticelli have builded 
worlds of their own and called them     
,dante's--as if ,dante's world were more
 than a mass of symbols of colour and   
form and sound which put on humanity1   
when they arouse some mind to an intense

 and romantic life that is not theirs2  
as if it was not one's own sorrows and  
angers and regrets and terrors and hopes
 that awaken to condemnation or         
repentance while ,dante treads his      
eternal pilgrimage2 as if any poet or   
painter or musician could be other than 
an enchanter calling with a persuasive  
or compelling ritual1 creatures1 noble  
or ignoble1 divine or dmonic1 covered   
with scales or in shining raiment1 that 
he never imagined1 out of the bottomless
 deeps of imaginations he never foresaw2
 as if the noblest achievement of art   
was not when the artist enfolds himself 
in darkness1 while he casts over his    
readers a light as of a wild and        
terrible dawn4  ,let us therefore put   
away the designs to ,the ,divine        
,comedy1 in which there is 'an ordinary 
intelligence1' and consider only the    
designs in which the magical ritual has 
called up extraordinary shapes1 the     
magical light glimmered upon a world1   
different from the ,dantesque world of  

our own intelligence in its ordinary and
 daily moods1 upon a difficult and      
distinguished world4 ,most of the series
 of designs to ,dante1 and there are a  
good number1 need not busy any one for a
 moment4 ,genelli has done a copious    
series1 which is very able in the       
'formal' 'generalized' way which ,blake 
hated1 and which is spiritually         
ridiculous4 ,penelli has transformed the
 ',inferno' into a vulgar ,walpurgis    
night1 and a certain ,schuler1 whom ,i  
do not find in the biographical         
dictionaries1 but who was apparently a  
,german1 has prefaced certain flaccid   
designs with some excellent charts1     
while ,stradanus has made a series for  
the ',inferno1' which has so many of the
 more material and unessential powers of
 art1 and is so extremely               
undistinguished in conception1 that one 
supposes him to have touched in the     
sixteenth century the same public ,dor  
has touched in the nineteenth4  ,though 
with many doubts1 ,i am tempted to value

 ,flaxman's designs to the ',inferno1'  
the ',purgatorio1' and the ',paradiso1' 
only a little above the best of these1  
because he does not seem to have ever   
been really moved by ,dante1 and so to  
have sunk into a formal manner1 which is
 a reflection of the vital manner of his
 ,homer and ,hesiod4 ,his designs to    
,the ,divine ,comedy will be laid1 one  
imagines1 with some ceremony in that    
immortal wastepaper-basket in which     
,time carries with many sighs the       
failures of great men4 ,i am perhaps    
wrong1 however1 because ,flaxman even at
 his best has not yet touched me very   
deeply1 and ,i hardly ever hope to      
escape this limitation of my ruling     
stars4 ,that ,signorelli does not seem  
greatly more interesting except here and
 there1 as in the drawing of ',the      
,angel1' full of innocence and energy1  
coming from the boat which has carried  
so many souls to the foot of the        
mountain of purgation1 can only be      
because one knows him through poor      

reproductions from frescoes half        
mouldered away with damp4 ,a            
little-known series1 drawn by ,adolph   
,strler1 an artist of ,german           
extraction1 who was settled in ,florence
 in the first half of this century1 are 
very poor in drawing1 very pathetic and 
powerful in invention1 and full of most 
interesting pre-,raphaelitic detail4    
,there are admirable and moving figures1
 who1 having set love above reason1     
listen in the last abandonment of       
despair to the judgment of ,minos1 or   
walk with a poignant melancholy to the  
foot of his throne through a land where 
owls and strange beasts move hither and 
thither with the sterile content of the 
evil that neither loves nor hates1 and a
 ,cerberus full of patient cruelty4 ,all
 ,strler's designs have1 however1 the   
languor of a mind that does its work by 
a succession of delicate critical       
perceptions rather than the decision and
 energy of true creation1 and are more a
 curious contribution to artistic       

methods than an imaginative force4  ,the
 only designs that compete with ,blake's
 are those of ,botticelli and ,giulio   
,clovio1 and these contrast rather than 
compete2 for ,blake did not live to     
carry his ',paradiso' beyond the first  
faint pencillings1 the first thin washes
 of colour1 while ,botticelli only1 as  
,i think1 became supremely imaginative  
in his ',paradiso1' and ,clovio never   
attempted the ',inferno' and            
',purgatorio' at all4 ,the imaginations 
of ,botticelli and ,clovio were         
overshadowed by the cloister1 and it was
 only when they passed beyond the world 
or into some noble peace1 which is not  
the world's peace1 that they won a      
perfect freedom4 ,blake had not such    
mastery over figure and drapery as had  
,botticelli1 but he could sympathize    
with the persons and delight in the     
scenery of the ',inferno' and the       
',purgatorio' as ,botticelli could not1 
and could fill them with a mysterious   
and spiritual significance born perhaps 

of mystical pantheism4 ,the flames of   
,botticelli give one no emotion1 and his
 car of ,beatrice is no symbolic chariot
 of the ,church led by the gryphon1 half
 eagle1 half lion1 of ,christ's dual    
nature1 but is a fragment of some       
medival pageant pictured with a merely  
technical inspiration4 ,clovio1 the     
illuminator of missals1 has tried to    
create with that too easy hand of his a 
,paradise of serene air reflected in a  
little mirror1 a heaven of sociability  
and humility and prettiness1 a heaven of
 women and of monks2 but one cannot     
imagine him deeply moved1 as the modern 
world is moved1 by the symbolism of bird
 and beast1 of tree and mountain1 of    
flame and darkness4 ,it was a profound  
understanding of all creatures and      
things1 a profound sympathy with        
passionate and lost souls1 made possible
 in their extreme intensity by his      
revolt against corporeal law1 and       
corporeal reason1 which made ,blake the 
one perfectly fit illustrator for the   

',inferno' and the ',purgatorio'3 in the
 serene and rapturous emptiness of      
,dante's ,paradise he would find no     
symbols but a few abstract emblems1 and 
he had no love for the abstract1 while  
with the drapery and the gestures of    
,beatrice and ,virgil1 he would have    
prospered less than ,botticelli or even 
,clovio4  #ahig4     ,,symbolism ,,in   
,,painting   ,in ,england1 which has    
made great ,symbolic ,art1 most people  
dislike an art if they are told it is   
symbolic1 for they confuse symbol and   
allegory4 ,even ,johnson's ,dictionary  
sees no great difference1 for it calls a
 ,symbol ',that which comprehends in its
 figure a representation of something   
else'2 and an ,allegory1 ',a figurative 
discourse1 in which something other is  
intended than is contained in the words 
literally taken4' ,it is only a very    
modern ,dictionary that calls a ,symbol 
'the sign or representation of any moral
 thing by the images or properties of   
natural things1' which1 though an       

imperfect definition1 is not unlike     
',the things below are as the things    
above' of the ,emerald ,tablet of       
,hermes6 ,the ,faery ,queen and ,the    
,pilgrim's ,progress have been so       
important in ,england that ,allegory has
 overtopped ,symbolism1 and for a time  
has overwhelmed it in its own downfall4 
,william ,blake was perhaps the first   
modern to insist on a difference2 and   
the other day1 when ,i sat for my       
portrait to a ,german ,symbolist in     
,paris1 whose talk was all of his love  
for ,symbolism and his hatred for       
,allegory1 his definitions were the same
 as ,william ,blake's1 of whom he knew  
nothing4 ,william ,blake has written1   
',vision or imagination'--meaning       
symbolism by these words--'is a         
representation of what actually exists1 
really or unchangeably4 ,fable or       
,allegory is formed by the daughters of 
,memory4' ,the ,german insisted with    
many determined gestures1 that          
,symbolism said things which could not  

be said so perfectly in any other way1  
and needed but a right instinct for its 
understanding2 while ,allegory said     
things which could be said as well1 or  
better1 in another way1 and needed a    
right knowledge for its understanding4  
,the one gave dumb things voices1 and   
bodiless things bodies2 while the other 
read a meaning--which had never lacked  
its voice or its body--into something   
heard or seen1 and loved less for the   
meaning than for its own sake4 ,the only
 symbols he cared for were the shapes   
and motions of the body2 ears hidden by 
the hair1 to make one think of a mind   
busy with inner voices2 and a head so   
bent that back and neck made the one    
curve1 as in ,blake's ',vision of       
,bloodthirstiness1' to call up an       
emotion of bodily strength2 and he would
 not put even a lily1 or a rose1 or a   
poppy into a picture to express purity1 
or love1 or sleep1 because he thought   
such emblems were allegorical1 and had  
their meaning by a traditional and not  

by a natural right4 ,i said that the    
rose1 and the lily1 and the poppy were  
so married1 by their colour and their   
odour1 and their use1 to love and purity
 and sleep1 or to other symbols of love 
and purity and sleep1 and had been so   
long a part of the imagination of the   
world1 that a symbolist might use them  
to help out his meaning without becoming
 an allegorist4 ,i think ,i quoted the  
lily in the hand of the angel in        
,rossetti's ',annunciation1' and the    
lily in the jar in his ',childhood of   
,mary ,virgin1' and thought they made   
the more important symbols1 the women's 
bodies1 and the angels' bodies1 and the 
clear morning light1 take that place1 in
 the great procession of ,christian     
symbols1 where they can alone have all  
their meaning and all their beauty4  ,it
 is hard to say where ,allegory and     
,symbolism melt into one another1 but it
 is not hard to say where either comes  
to its perfection2 and though one may   
doubt whether ,allegory or ,symbolism is

 the greater in the horns of ,michael   
,angelo's ',moses1' one need not doubt  
that its symbolism has helped to awaken 
the modern imagination2 while           
,tintoretto's ',origin of the ,milky    
,way1' which is ,allegory without any   
,symbolism1 is1 apart from its fine     
painting1 but a moment's amusement for  
our fancy4 ,a hundred generations might 
write out what seemed the meaning of the
 one1 and they would write different    
meanings1 for no symbol tells all its   
meaning to any generation2 but when you 
have said1 ',that woman there is ,juno1 
and the milk out of her breast is making
 the ,milky ,way1' you have told the    
meaning of the other1 and the fine      
painting1 which has added so much       
irrelevant beauty1 has not told it      
better4  ,all ,art that is not mere     
storytelling1 or mere portraiture1 is   
symbolic1 and has the purpose of those  
symbolic talismans which medival        
magicians made with complex colours and 
forms1 and bade their patients ponder   

over daily1 and guard with holy secrecy2
 for it entangles1 in complex colours   
and forms1 a part of the ,divine        
,essence4 ,a person or a landscape that 
is a part of a story or a portrait1     
evokes but so much emotion as the story 
or the portrait can permit without      
loosening the bonds that make it a story
 or a portrait2 but if you liberate a   
person or a landscape from the bonds of 
motives and their actions1 causes and   
their effects1 and from all bonds but   
the bonds of your love1 it will change  
under your eyes1 and become a symbol of 
an infinite emotion1 a perfected        
emotion1 a part of the ,divine ,essence2
 for we love nothing but the perfect1   
and our dreams make all things perfect1 
that we may love them4 ,religious and   
visionary people1 monks and nuns1 and   
medicine-men1 and opium-eaters1 see     
symbols in their trances2 for religious 
and visionary thought is thought about  
perfection and the way to perfection2   
and symbols are the only things free    

enough from all bonds to speak of       
perfection4  ,wagner's dramas1 ,keats'  
odes1 ,blake's pictures and poems1      
,calvert's pictures1 ,rossetti's        
pictures1 ,villiers ,de l',isle ,adam's 
plays1 and the black-and-white art of   
,mr4 ,beardsley and ,mr4 ,ricketts1 and 
the lithographs of ,mr4 ,shannon1 and   
the pictures of ,mr4 ,whistler1 and the 
plays of ,m4 ,maeterlinck1 and the      
poetry of ,verlaine1 in our own day1 but
 differ from the religious art of       
,giotto and his disciples in having     
accepted all symbolisms1 the symbolism  
of the ancient shepherds and            
star-gazers1 that symbolism of bodily   
beauty which seemed a wicked thing to   
,fra ,angelico1 the symbolism in day and
 night1 and winter and summer1 spring   
and autumn1 once so great a part of an  
older religion than ,christianity2 and  
in having accepted all the ,divine      
,intellect1 its anger and its pity1 its 
waking and its sleep1 its love and its  
lust1 for the substance of their art4 ,a

 ,keats or a ,calvert is as much a      
symbolist as a ,blake or a ,wagner2 but 
he is a fragmentary symbolist1 for while
 he evokes in his persons and his       
landscapes an infinite emotion1 a       
perfected emotion1 a part of the ,divine
 ,essence1 he does not set his symbols  
in the great procession as ,blake would 
have him1 'in a certain order1 suited'  
to his 'imaginative energy4' ,if you    
paint a beautiful woman and fill her    
face1 as ,rossetti filled so many faces1
 with an infinite love1 a perfected     
love1 'one's eyes meet no mortal thing  
when they meet the light of her peaceful
 eyes1' as ,michael ,angelo said of     
,vittoria ,colonna2 but one's thoughts  
stray to mortal things1 and ask1 maybe1 
',has her lover gone from her1 or is he 
coming8' or ',what pre-destinated       
unhappiness has made the shadow in her  
eyes8' ,if you paint the same face1 and 
set a winged rose or a rose of gold     
somewhere about her1 one's thoughts are 
of her immortal sisters1 ,pity and      

,jealousy1 and of her mother1 ,ancestral
 ,beauty1 and of her high kinsmen1 the  
,holy ,orders1 whose swords make a      
continual music before her face4 ,the   
systematic mystic is not the greatest of
 artists1 because his imagination is too
 great to be bounded by a picture or a  
song1 and because only imperfection in a
 mirror of perfection1 or perfection in 
a mirror of imperfection1 delight our   
frailty4 ,there is indeed a systematic  
mystic in every poet or painter who1    
like ,rossetti1 delights in a           
traditional ,symbolism1 or1 like        
,wagner1 delights in a personal         
,symbolism2 and such men often fall into
 trances1 or have waking dreams4 ,their 
thought wanders from the woman who is   
,love herself1 to her sisters and her   
forebears1 and to all the great         
procession2 and so august a beauty moves
 before the mind1 that they forget the  
things which move before the eyes4      
,william ,blake1 who was the chanticleer
 of the new dawn1 has written3 ',if the 

spectator could enter into one of these 
images of his imagination1 approaching  
them on the fiery chariot of his        
contemplative thought1 if 444 he could  
make a friend and companion of one of   
these images of wonder1 which always    
entreat him to leave mortal things 7as  
he must know71 then would he arise from 
the grave1 then would he meet the ,lord 
in the air1 and then he would be happy4'
 ,and again1 ',the world of imagination 
is the world of ,eternity4 ,it is the   
,divine bosom into which we shall all go
 after the death of the vegetated body4 
,the world of imagination is infinite   
and eternal1 whereas the world of       
generation or vegetation is finite and  
temporal4 ,there exist in that eternal  
world the eternal realities of          
everything which we see reflected in the
 vegetable glass of nature4'  ,every    
visionary knows that the mind's eye soon
 comes to see a capricious and variable 
world1 which the will cannot shape or   
change1 though it can call it up and    

banish it again4 ,i closed my eyes a    
moment ago1 and a company of people in  
blue robes swept by me in a blinding    
light1 and had gone before ,i had done  
more than see little roses embroidered  
on the hems of their robes1 and         
confused1 blossoming apple-boughs       
somewhere beyond them1 and recognized   
one of the company by his square1 black 
curling beard4 ,i have often seen him2  
and one night a year ago1 ,i asked him  
questions which he answered by showing  
me flowers and precious stones1 of whose
 meaning ,i had no knowledge1 and he    
seemed too perfected a soul for any     
knowledge that cannot be spoken in      
symbol or metaphor4  ,are he and his    
blue-robed companions1 and their like1  
'the ,eternal realities' of which we are
 the reflection 'in the vegetable glass 
of nature1' or a momentary dream8 ,to   
answer is to take sides in the only     
controversy in which it is greatly worth
 taking sides1 and in the only          
controversy which may never be decided4 

#ahih4     ,,the ,,symbolism ,,of       
,,poetry   ,i  ',symbolism1 as seen in  
the writers of our day1 would have no   
value if it were not seen also1 under   
one disguise or another1 in every great 
imaginative writer1' writes ,mr4 ,arthur
 ,symons in ,the ,symbolist ,movement in
 ,literature1 a subtle book which ,i    
cannot praise as ,i would1 because it   
has been dedicated to me2 and he goes on
 to show how many profound writers have 
in the last few years sought for a      
philosophy of poetry in the doctrine of 
symbolism1 and how even in countries    
where it is almost scandalous to seek   
for any philosophy of poetry1 new       
writers are following them in their     
search4 ,we do not know what the writers
 of ancient times talked of among       
themselves1 and one bull is all that    
remains of ,shakespeare's talk1 who was 
on the edge of modern times2 and the    
journalist is convinced1 it seems1 that 
they talked of wine and women and       
politics1 but never about their art1 or 

never quite seriously about their art4  
,he is certain that no one1 who had a   
philosophy of his art or a theory of how
 he should write1 has ever made a work  
of art1 that people have no imagination 
who do not write without forethought and
 afterthought as he writes his own      
articles4 ,he says this with enthusiasm1
 because he has heard it at so many     
comfortable dinner-tables1 where some   
one had mentioned through carelessness1 
or foolish zeal1 a book whose difficulty
 had offended indolence1 or a man who   
had not forgotten that beauty is an     
accusation4 ,those formulas and         
generalizations1 in which a hidden      
sergeant has drilled the ideas of       
journalists and through them the ideas  
of all but all the modern world1 have   
created in their turn a forgetfulness   
like that of soldiers in battle1 so that
 journalists and their readers have     
forgotten1 among many like events1 that 
,wagner spent seven years arranging and 
explaining his ideas before he began his

 most characteristic music2 that opera1 
and with it modern music1 arose from    
certain talks at the house of one       
,giovanni ,bardi of ,florence2 and that 
the ,pleiade laid the foundations of    
modern ,french literature with a        
pamphlet4 ,goethe has said1 'a poet     
needs all philosophy1 but he must keep  
it out of his work1' though that is not 
always necessary2 and certainly he      
cannot know too much1 whether about his 
own work1 or about the procreant waters 
of the soul where the breath first      
moved1 or about the waters under the    
earth that are the life of passing      
things2 and almost certainly no great   
art1 outside ,england1 where journalists
 are more powerful and ideas less       
plentiful than elsewhere1 has arisen    
without a great criticism1 for its      
herald or its interpreter and protector1
 and it is perhaps for this reason that 
great art1 now that vulgarity has armed 
itself and multiplied itself1 is perhaps
 dead in ,england4  ,all writers1 all   

artists of any kind1 in so far as they  
have had any philosophical or critical  
power1 perhaps just in so far as they   
have been deliberate artists at all1    
have had some philosophy1 some criticism
 of their art2 and it has often been    
this philosophy1 or this criticism1 that
 has evoked their most startling        
inspiration1 calling into outer life    
some portion of the divine life1 of the 
buried reality1 which could alone       
extinguish in the emotions what their   
philosophy or their criticism would     
extinguish in the intellect4 ,they have 
sought for no new thing1 it may be1 but 
only to understand and to copy the pure 
inspiration of early times1 but because 
the divine life wars upon our outer     
life1 and must needs change its weapons 
and its movements as we change ours1    
inspiration has come to them in         
beautiful startling shapes4 ,the        
scientific movement brought with it a   
literature1 which was always tending to 
lose itself in externalities of all     

kinds1 in opinion1 in declamation1 in   
picturesque writing1 in word-painting1  
or in what ,mr4 ,symons has called an   
attempt 'to build in brick and mortar   
inside the covers of a book'2 and now   
writers have begun to dwell upon the    
element of evocation1 of suggestion1    
upon what we call the symbolism in great
 writers4   ,,ii  ,in ',symbolism in    
,painting' ,i tried to describe the     
element of symbolism that is in pictures
 and sculpture1 and described a little  
the symbolism in poetry1 but did not    
describe at all the continuous          
indefinable symbolism which is the      
substance of all style4  ,there are no  
lines with more melancholy beauty than  
these by ,burns--    ',the white moon is
 setting behind the white wave1   ,and  
,time is setting with me1 ,o6'  and     
these lines are perfectly symbolical4   
,take from them the whiteness of the    
moon and of the wave1 whose relation to 
the setting of ,time is too subtle for  
the intellect1 and you take from them   

their beauty4 ,but1 when all are        
together1 moon and wave and whiteness   
and setting ,time and the melancholy    
cry1 they evoke an emotion which cannot 
be evoked by any other arrangement of   
colours and sounds and forms4 ,we may   
call this metaphorical writing1 but it  
is better to call it symbolical writing1
 because metaphors are not profound     
enough to be moving1 when they are not  
symbols1 and when they are symbols they 
are the most perfect1 because the most  
subtle1 outside of pure sound1 and      
through them one can the best find out  
what symbols are4 ,if one begins the    
reverie with any beautiful lines that   
one can remember1 one finds they are all
 like those by ,burns4 ,begin with this 
line by ,blake--    ',the gay fishes on 
the wave when the moon sucks up the     
dew2'  or these lines by ,nash--        
',brightness falls from the air1        
,queens have died young and fair1       
,dust hath closed ,helen's eye2'  or    
these lines by ,shakespeare--    ',timon

 hath made his everlasting mansion      
,upon the beached verge of the salt     
flood2   ,who once a day with his       
embossed froth   ,the turbulent surge   
shall cover2'  or take some line that is
 quite simple1 that gets its beauty from
 its place in a story1 and see how it   
flickers with the light of the many     
symbols that have given the story its   
beauty1 as a sword-blade may flicker    
with the light of burning towers4  ,all 
sounds1 all colours1 all forms1 either  
because of their pre-ordained energies  
or because of long association1 evoke   
indefinable and yet precise emotions1   
or1 as ,i prefer to think1 call down    
among us certain disembodied powers1    
whose footsteps over our hearts we call 
emotions2 and when sound1 and colour1   
and form are in a musical relation1 a   
beautiful relation to one another1 they 
become as it were one sound1 one colour1
 one form1 and evoke an emotion that is 
made out of their distinct evocations   
and yet is one emotion4 ,the same       

relation exists between all portions of 
every work of art1 whether it be an epic
 or a song1 and the more perfect it is1 
and the more various and numerous the   
elements that have flowed into its      
perfection1 the more powerful will be   
the emotion1 the power1 the god it calls
 among us4 ,because an emotion does not 
exist1 or does not become perceptible   
and active among us1 till it has found  
its expression1 in colour or in sound or
 in form1 or in all of these1 and       
because no two modulations or           
arrangements of these evoke the same    
emotion1 poets and painters and         
musicians1 and in a less degree because 
their effects are momentary1 day and    
night and cloud and shadow1 are         
continually making and unmaking mankind4
 ,it is indeed only those things which  
seem useless or very feeble that have   
any power1 and all those things that    
seem useful or strong1 armies1 moving   
wheels1 modes of architecture1 modes of 
government1 speculations of the reason1 

would have been a little different if   
some mind long ago had not given itself 
to some emotion1 as a woman gives       
herself to her lover1 and shaped sounds 
or colours or forms1 or all of these1   
into a musical relation1 that their     
emotion might live in other minds4 ,a   
little lyric evokes an emotion1 and this
 emotion gathers others about it and    
melts into their being in the making of 
some great epic2 and at last1 needing an
 always less delicate body1 or symbol1  
as it grows more powerful1 it flows out1
 with all it has gathered1 among the    
blind instincts of daily life1 where it 
moves a power within powers1 as one sees
 ring within ring in the stem of an old 
tree4 ,this is maybe what ,arthur       
,o',shaughnessy meant when he made his  
poets say they had built ,nineveh with  
their sighing2 and ,i am certainly never
 certain1 when ,i hear of some war1 or  
of some religious excitement1 or of some
 new manufacture1 or of anything else   
that fills the ear of the world1 that it

 has not all happened because of        
something that a boy piped in ,thessaly4
 ,i remember once asking a seer to ask  
one among the gods who1 as she believed1
 were standing about her in their       
symbolic bodies1 what would come of a   
charming but seeming trivial labour of a
 friend1 and the form answering1 'the   
devastation of peoples and the          
overwhelming of cities4' ,i doubt indeed
 if the crude circumstance of the world1
 which seems to create all our emotions1
 does more than reflect1 as in          
multiplying mirrors1 the emotions that  
have come to solitary men in moments of 
poetical contemplation2 or that love    
itself would be more than an animal     
hunger but for the poet and his shadow  
the priest1 for unless we believe that  
outer things are the reality1 we must   
believe that the gross is the shadow of 
the subtle1 that things are wise before 
they become foolish1 and secret before  
they cry out in the market-place4       
,solitary men in moments of             

contemplation receive1 as ,i think1 the 
creative impulse from the lowest of the 
,nine ,hierarchies1 and so make and     
unmake mankind1 and even the world      
itself1 for does not 'the eye altering  
alter all'8    ',our towns are copied   
fragments from our breast2   ,and all   
man's ,babylons strive but to impart    
,the grandeurs of his ,babylonian       
heart4'   ,,iii  ,the purpose of rhythm1
 it has always seemed to me1 is to      
prolong the moment of contemplation1 the
 moment when we are both asleep and     
awake1 which is the one moment of       
creation1 by hushing us with an alluring
 monotony1 while it holds us waking by  
variety1 to keep us in that state of    
perhaps real trance1 in which the mind  
liberated from the pressure of the will 
is unfolded in symbols4 ,if certain     
sensitive persons listen persistently to
 the ticking of a watch1 or gaze        
persistently on the monotonous flashing 
of a light1 they fall into the hypnotic 
trance2 and rhythm is but the ticking of

 a watch made softer1 that one must     
needs listen1 and various1 that one may 
not be swept beyond memory or grow weary
 of listening2 while the patterns of the
 artist are but the monotonous flash    
woven to take the eyes in a subtler     
enchantment4 ,i have heard in meditation
 voices that were forgotten the moment  
they had spoken2 and ,i have been swept1
 when in more profound meditation1      
beyond all memory but of those things   
that came from beyond the threshold of  
waking life4 ,i was writing once at a   
very symbolical and abstract poem1 when 
my pen fell on the ground2 and as ,i    
stooped to pick it up1 ,i remembered    
some phantastic adventure that yet did  
not seem phantastic1 and then another   
like adventure1 and when ,i asked myself
 when these things had happened1 ,i     
found that ,i was remembering my dreams 
for many nights4 ,i tried to remember   
what ,i had done the day before1 and    
then what ,i had done that morning2 but 
all my waking life had perished from me1

 and it was only after a struggle that  
,i came to remember it again1 and as ,i 
did so that more powerful and startling 
life perished in its turn4 ,had my pen  
not fallen on the ground and so made me 
turn from the images that ,i was weaving
 into verse1 ,i would never have known  
that meditation had become trance1 for  
,i would have been like one who does not
 know that he is passing through a wood 
because his eyes are on the pathway4 ,so
 ,i think that in the making and in the 
understanding of a work of art1 and the 
more easily if it is full of patterns   
and symbols and music1 we are lured to  
the threshold of sleep1 and it may be   
far beyond it1 without knowing that we  
have ever set our feet upon the steps of
 horn or of ivory4   ,,iv  ,besides     
emotional symbols1 symbols that evoke   
emotions alone1--and in this sense all  
alluring or hateful things are symbols1 
although their relations with one       
another are too subtle to delight us    
fully1 away from rhythm and             

pattern1--there are intellectual        
symbols1 symbols that evoke ideas alone1
 or ideas mingled with emotions2 and    
outside the very definite traditions of 
mysticism and the less definite         
criticism of certain modern poets1 these
 alone are called symbols4 ,most things 
belong to one or another kind1 according
 to the way we speak of them and the    
companions we give them1 for symbols1   
associated with ideas that are more than
 fragments of the shadows thrown upon   
the intellect by the emotions they      
evoke1 are the playthings of the        
allegorist or the pedant1 and soon pass 
away4 ,if ,i say 'white' or 'purple' in 
an ordinary line of poetry1 they evoke  
emotions so exclusively that ,i cannot  
say why they move me2 but if ,i say them
 in the same mood1 in the same breath   
with such obvious intellectual symbols  
as a cross or a crown of thorns1 ,i     
think of purity and sovereignty2 while  
innumerable other meanings1 which are   
held to one another by the bondage of   

subtle suggestion1 and alike in the     
emotions and in the intellect1 move     
visibly through my mind1 and move       
invisibly beyond the threshold of sleep1
 casting lights and shadows of an       
indefinable wisdom on what had seemed   
before1 it may be1 but sterility and    
noisy violence4 ,it is the intellect    
that decides where the reader shall     
ponder over the procession of the       
symbols1 and if the symbols are merely  
emotional1 he gazes from amid the       
accidents and destinies of the world2   
but if the symbols are intellectual too1
 he becomes himself a part of pure      
intellect1 and he is himself mingled    
with the procession4 ,if ,i watch a     
rushy pool in the moonlight1 my emotion 
at its beauty is mixed with memories of 
the man that ,i have seen ploughing by  
its margin1 or of the lovers ,i saw     
there a night ago2 but if ,i look at the
 moon herself and remember any of her   
ancient names and meanings1 ,i move     
among divine people1 and things that    

have shaken off our mortality1 the tower
 of ivory1 the queen of waters1 the     
shining stag among enchanted woods1 the 
white hare sitting upon the hilltop1 the
 fool of faery with his shining cup full
 of dreams1 and it may be 'make a friend
 of one of these images of wonder1' and 
'meet the ,lord in the air4' ,so1 too1  
if one is moved by ,shakespeare1 who is 
content with emotional symbols that he  
may come the nearer to our sympathy1 one
 is mixed with the whole spectacle of   
the world2 while if one is moved by     
,dante1 or by the myth of ,demeter1 one 
is mixed into the shadow of ,god or of a
 goddess4 ,so too one is furthest from  
symbols when one is busy doing this or  
that1 but the soul moves among symbols  
and unfolds in symbols when trance1 or  
madness1 or deep meditation has         
withdrawn it from every impulse but its 
own4 ',i then saw1' wrote ,grard de     
,nerval of his madness1 'vaguely        
drifting into form1 plastic images of   
antiquity1 which outlined themselves1   

became definite1 and seemed to represent
 symbols of which ,i only seized the    
idea with difficulty4' ,in an earlier   
time he would have been of that         
multitude1 whose souls austerity        
withdrew1 even more perfectly than      
madness could withdraw his soul1 from   
hope and memory1 from desire and regret1
 that they might reveal those           
processions of symbols that men bow to  
before altars1 and woo with incense and 
offerings4 ,but being of our time1 he   
has been like ,maeterlinck1 like        
,villiers de l',isle ,adam in ,axl1 like
 all who are preoccupied with           
intellectual symbols in our time1 a     
foreshadower of the new sacred book1 of 
which all the arts1 as somebody has     
said1 are begging to dream1 and because1
 as ,i think1 they cannot overcome the  
slow dying of men's hearts that we call 
the progress of the world1 and lay their
 hands upon men's heart-strings again1  
without becoming the garment of religion
 as in old times4   ,v  ,if people were 

to accept the theory that poetry moves  
us because of its symbolism1 what change
 should one look for in the manner of   
our poetry8 ,a return to the way of our 
fathers1 a casting out of descriptions  
of nature for the sake of nature1 of the
 moral law for the sake of the moral    
law1 a casting out of all anecdotes and 
of that brooding over scientific opinion
 that so often extinguished the central 
flame in ,tennyson1 and of that         
vehemence that would make us do or not  
do certain things2 or1 in other words1  
we should come to understand that the   
beryl stone was enchanted by our fathers
 that it might unfold the pictures in   
its heart1 and not to mirror our own    
excited faces1 or the boughs waving     
outside the window4 ,with this change of
 substance1 this return to imagination1 
this understanding that the laws of art1
 which are the hidden laws of the world1
 can alone bind the imagination1 would  
come a change of style1 and we would    
cast out of serious poetry those        

energetic rhythms1 as of a man running1 
which are the invention of the will with
 its eyes always on something to be done
 or undone2 and we would seek out those 
wavering1 meditative1 organic rhythms1  
which are the embodiment of the         
imagination1 that neither desires nor   
hates1 because it has done with time1   
and only wishes to gaze upon some       
reality1 some beauty2 nor would it be   
any longer possible for anybody to deny 
the importance of form1 in all its      
kinds1 for although you can expound an  
opinion1 or describe a thing when your  
words are not quite well chosen1 you    
cannot give a body to something that    
moves beyond the senses1 unless your    
words are as subtle1 as complex1 as full
 of mysterious life1 as the body of a   
flower or of a woman4 ,the form of      
sincere poetry1 unlike the form of the  
popular poetry1 may indeed be sometimes 
obscure1 or ungrammatical as in some of 
the best of the ,songs of ,innocence and
 ,experience1 but it must have the      

perfections that escape analysis1 the   
subtleties that have a new meaning every
 day1 and it must have all this whether 
it be but a little song made out of a   
moment of dreamy indolence1 or some     
great epic made out of the dreams of one
 poet and of a hundred generations whose
 hands were never weary of the sword4   
#aijj4     ,,the ,,theatre   ,i  ,i     
remember1 some years ago1 advising a    
distinguished1 though too little        
recognized1 writer of poetical plays to 
write a play as unlike ordinary plays as
 possible1 that it might be judged with 
a fresh mind1 and to put it on the stage
 in some small suburban theatre1 where a
 small audience would pay its expenses4 
,i said that he should follow it the    
year after1 at the same time of the     
year1 with another play1 and so on from 
year to year2 and that the people who   
read books1 and do not go to the        
theatre1 would gradually find out about 
him4 ,i suggested that he should begin  
with a pastoral play1 because nobody    

would expect from a pastoral play the   
succession of nervous tremours which the
 plays of commerce1 like the novels of  
commerce1 have substituted for the      
purification that comes with pity and   
terror to the imagination and intellect4
 ,he followed my advice in part1 and had
 a small but perfect success1 filling   
his small theatre for twice the number  
of performances he had announced2 but   
instead of being content with the praise
 of his equals1 and waiting to win their
 praise another year1 he hired          
immediately a big ,london theatre1 and  
put his pastoral play and a new play    
before a meagre and unintelligent       
audience4 ,i still remember his pastoral
 play with delight1 because1 if not     
always of a high excellence1 it was     
always poetical2 but ,i remember it at  
the small theatre1 where my pleasure was
 magnified by the pleasure of those     
about me1 and not at the big theatre1   
where it made me uncomfortable1 as an   
unwelcome guest always makes one        

uncomfortable4  ,why should we thrust   
our works1 which we have written with   
imaginative sincerity and filled with   
spiritual desire1 before those quite    
excellent people who think that         
,rossetti's women are 'guys1' that      
,rodin's women are 'ugly1' and that     
,ibsen is 'immoral1' and who only want  
to be left at peace to enjoy the works  
so many clever men have made especially 
to suit them8 ,we must make a theatre   
for ourselves and our friends1 and for a
 few simple people who understand from  
sheer simplicity what we understand from
 scholarship and thought4 ,we have      
planned the ,irish ,literary ,theatre   
with this hospitable emotion1 and1 that 
the right people may find out about us1 
we hope to act a play or two in the     
spring of every year2 and that the right
 people may escape the stupefying memory
 of the theatre of commerce which clings
 even to them1 our plays will be for the
 most part remote1 spiritual1 and ideal4
  ,a common opinion is that the poetic  

drama has come to an end1 because modern
 poets have no dramatic power2 and ,mr4 
,binyon seems to accept this opinion    
when he says3 ',it has been too often   
assumed that it is the manager who bars 
the way to poetic plays4 ,but it is much
 more probable that the poets have      
failed the managers4 ,if poets mean to  
serve the stage1 their dramas must be   
dramatic4' ,i find it easier to believe 
that audiences1 who have learned1 as ,i 
think1 from the life of crowded cities  
to live upon the surface of life1 and   
actors and managers1 who study to please
 them1 have changed1 than that          
imagination1 which is the voice of what 
is eternal in man1 has changed4 ,the    
arts are but one ,art2 and why should   
all intense painting and all intense    
poetry have become not merely           
unintelligible but hateful to the       
greater number of men and women1 and    
intense drama move them to pleasure8    
,the audiences of ,sophocles and of     
,shakespeare and of ,calderon were not  

unlike the audiences ,i have heard      
listening in ,irish cabins to songs in  
,gaelic about 'an old poet telling his  
sins1' and about 'the five young men who
 were drowned last year1' and about 'the
 lovers that were drowned going to      
,america1' or to some tale of ,oisin and
 his three hundred years in ,tir nan    
,oge4 ,mr4 ,bridges' ,return of         
,ulysses1 one of the most beautiful and1
 as ,i think1 dramatic of modern plays1 
might have some success in the ,aran    
,islands1 if the ,gaelic ,league would  
translate it into ,gaelic1 but ,i am    
quite certain that it would have no     
success in the ,strand4  ,blake has said
 that all ,art is a labour to bring     
again the ,golden ,age1 and all culture 
is certainly a labour to bring again the
 simplicity of the first ages1 with     
knowledge of good and evil added to it4 
,the drama has need of cities that it   
may find men in sufficient numbers1 and 
cities destroy the emotions to which it 
appeals1 and therefore the days of the  

drama are brief and come but seldom4 ,it
 has one day when the emotions of cities
 still remember the emotions of sailors 
and husbandmen and shepherds and users  
of the spear and the bow2 as the houses 
and furniture and earthen vessels of    
cities1 before the coming of machinery1 
remember the rocks and the woods and the
 hillside2 and it has another day1 now  
beginning1 when thought and scholarship 
discover their desire4 ,in the first    
day1 it is the ,art of the people2 and  
in the second day1 like the dramas acted
 of old times in the hidden places of   
temples1 it is the preparation of a     
,priesthood4 ,it may be1 though the     
world is not old enough to show us any  
example1 that this ,priesthood will     
spread their ,religion everywhere1 and  
make their ,art the ,art of the people4 
,when the first day of the drama had    
passed by1 actors found that an always  
larger number of people were more easily
 moved through the eyes than through the
 ears4 ,the emotion that comes with the 

music of words is exhausting1 like all  
intellectual emotions1 and few people   
like exhausting emotions2 and therefore 
actors began to speak as if they were   
reading something out of the newspapers4
 ,they forgot the noble art of oratory1 
and gave all their thought to the poor  
art of acting1 that is content with the 
sympathy of our nerves2 until at last   
those who love poetry found it better to
 read alone in their rooms what they had
 once delighted to hear sitting friend  
by friend1 lover by beloved4 ,i once    
asked ,mr4 ,william ,morris if he had   
thought of writing a play1 and he       
answered that he had1 but would not     
write one1 because actors did not know  
how to speak poetry with the half-chant 
men spoke it with in old times4 ,mr4    
,swinburne's ,locrine was acted a month 
ago1 and it was not badly acted1 but    
nobody could tell whether it was fit for
 the stage or not1 for not one rhythm1  
not one cry of passion1 was spoken with 
a musical emphasis1 and verse spoken    

without a musical emphasis seems but an 
artificial and cumbersome way of saying 
what might be said naturally and simply 
in prose4  ,as audiences and actors     
changed1 managers learned to substitute 
meretricious landscapes1 painted upon   
wood and canvas1 for the descriptions of
 poetry1 until the painted scenery1     
which had in ,greece been a charming    
explanation of what was least important 
in the story1 became as important as the
 story4 ,it needed some imagination1    
some gift for day-dreams1 to see the    
horses and the fields and flowers of    
,colonus as one listened to the elders  
gathered about ,o,edipus1 or to see 'the
 pendent bed and procreant cradle' of   
the 'martlet' as one listened to ,duncan
 before the castle of ,macbeth2 but it  
needs no imagination to admire a        
painting of one of the more obvious     
effects of nature painted by somebody   
who understands how to show everything  
to the most hurried glance4 ,at the same
 time the managers made the costumes of 

the actors more and more magnificent1   
that the mind might sleep in peace1     
while the eye took pleasure in the      
magnificence of velvet and silk and in  
the physical beauty of women4 ,these    
changes gradually perfected the theatre 
of commerce1 the masterpiece of that    
movement towards externality in life and
 thought and ,art1 against which the    
criticism of our day is learning to     
protest4  ,even if poetry were spoken as
 poetry1 it would still seem out of     
place in many of its highest moments    
upon a stage1 where the superficial     
appearances of nature are so closely    
copied2 for poetry is founded upon      
convention1 and becomes incredible the  
moment painting or gesture remind us    
that people do not speak verse when they
 meet upon the highway4 ,the theatre of 
,art1 when it comes to exist1 must      
therefore discover grave and decorative 
gestures1 such as delighted ,rossetti   
and ,madox ,brown1 and grave and        
decorative scenery1 that will be        

forgotten the moment an actor has said  
',it is dawn1' or ',it is raining1' or  
',the wind is shaking the trees'2 and   
dresses of so little irrelevant         
magnificence that the mortal actors and 
actresses may change without much labour
 into the immortal people of romance4   
,the theatre began in ritual1 and it    
cannot come to its greatness again      
without recalling words to their ancient
 sovereignty4  ,it will take a          
generation1 and perhaps generations1 to 
restore the theatre of ,art2 for one    
must get one's actors1 and perhaps one's
 scenery1 from the theatre of commerce1 
until new actors and new painters have  
come to help one2 and until many        
failures and imperfect successes have   
made a new tradition1 and perfected in  
detail the ideal that is beginning to   
float before our eyes4 ,if one could    
call one's painters and one's actors    
from where one would1 how easy it would 
be4 ,i know some painters1 who have     
never painted scenery1 who could paint  

the scenery ,i want1 but they have their
 own work to do2 and in ,ireland ,i have
 heard a red-haired orator repeat some  
bad political verses with a voice that  
went through one like flame1 and made   
them seem the most beautiful verses in  
the world2 but he has no practical      
knowledge of the stage1 and probably    
despises it4  ,may #ahii4   ,,ii        
,dionysius1 the ,areopagite1 wrote that 
',he has set the borders of the nations 
according to ,his angels4' ,it is these 
angels1 each one the genius of some race
 about to be unfolded1 that are the     
founders of intellectual traditions2 and
 as lovers understand in their first    
glance all that is to befall them1 and  
as poets and musicians see the whole    
work in its first impulse1 so races     
prophesy at their awakening whatever the
 generations that are to prolong their  
traditions shall accomplish in detail4  
,it is only at the awakening--as in     
ancient ,greece1 or in ,elizabethan     
,england1 or in contemporary            

,scandinavia--that great numbers of men 
understand that a right understanding of
 life and of destiny is more important  
than amusement4 ,in ,london1 where all  
the intellectual traditions gather to   
die1 men hate a play if they are told it
 is literature1 for they will not endure
 a spiritual superiority2 but in        
,athens1 where so many intellectual     
traditions were born1 ,euripides once   
changed hostility to enthusiasm by      
asking his playgoers whether it was his 
business to teach them1 or their        
business to teach him4 ,new races       
understand instinctively1 because the   
future cries in their ears1 that the old
 revelations are insufficient1 and that 
all life is revelation beginning in     
miracle and enthusiasm1 and dying out as
 it unfolds itself in what we have      
mistaken for progress4 ,it is one of our
 illusions1 as ,i think1 that education1
 the softening of manners1 the          
perfecting of law--countless images of a
 fading light--can create nobleness and 

beauty1 and that life moves slowly and  
evenly towards some perfection4         
,progress is miracle1 and it is sudden1 
because miracles are the work of an     
all-powerful energy1 and nature in      
herself has no power except to die and  
to forget4 ,if one studies one's own    
mind1 one comes to think with ,blake1   
that 'every time less than a pulsation  
of the artery is equal to six thousand  
years1 for in this period the poet's    
work is done2 and all the great events  
of time start forth and are conceived in
 such a period1 within a pulsation of   
the artery4'  ,february #aijj4     ,,the
 ,,celtic ,,element ,,in ,,literature   
,i  ,ernest ,renan described what he    
held to be ,celtic characteristics in   
,the ,poetry of the ,celtic ,races4 ,i  
must repeat the well-known sentences3   
',no race communed so intimately as the 
,celtic race with the lower creation1 or
 believed it to have so big a share of  
moral life4' ,the ,celtic race had 'a   
realistic naturalism1' 'a love of nature

 for herself1 a vivid feeling for her   
magic1 commingled with the melancholy a 
man knows when he is face to face with  
her1 and thinks he hears her communing  
with him about his origin and his       
destiny4' ',it has worn itself out in   
mistaking dreams for realities1' and    
'compared with the classical imagination
 the ,celtic imagination is indeed the  
infinite contrasted with the finite4'   
',its history is one long lament1 it    
still recalls its exiles1 its flights   
across the seas4' ',if at times it seems
 to be cheerful1 its tear is not slow to
 glisten behind the smile4 ,its songs of
 joy end as elegies2 there is nothing to
 equal the delightful sadness of its    
national melodies4' ,matthew ,arnold1 in
 ,the ,study of ,celtic ,literature1 has
 accepted this passion for nature1 this 
imaginativeness1 this melancholy1 as    
,celtic characteristics1 but has        
described them more elaborately4 ,the   
,celtic passion for nature comes almost 
more from a sense of her 'mystery' than 

of her 'beauty1' and it adds 'charm and 
magic' to nature1 and the ,celtic       
imaginativeness and melancholy are alike
 'a passionate1 turbulent1 indomitable  
reaction against the despotism of fact4'
 ,the ,celt is not melancholy1 as ,faust
 or ,werther are melancholy1 from 'a    
perfectly definite motive1' but because 
of something about him 'unaccountable1  
defiant and titanic4' ,how well one     
knows these sentences1 better even than 
,renan's1 and how well one knows the    
passages of prose and verse which he    
uses to prove that wherever ,english    
literature has the qualities these      
sentences describe1 it has them from a  
,celtic source4 ,though ,i do not think 
any of us who write about ,ireland have 
built any argument upon them1 it is well
 to consider them a little1 and see     
where they are helpful and where they   
are hurtful4 ,if we do not1 we may go   
mad some day1 and the enemy root up our 
rose-garden and plant a cabbage-garden  
instead4 ,perhaps we must restate a     

little1 ,renan's and ,arnold's argument4
   ,,ii  ,once every people in the world
 believed that trees were divine1 and   
could take a human or grotesque shape   
and dance among the shadows2 and that   
deer1 and ravens and foxes1 and wolves  
and bears1 and clouds and pools1 almost 
all things under the sun and moon1 and  
the sun and moon1 were not less divine  
and changeable4 ,they saw in the rainbow
 the still bent bow of a god thrown down
 in his negligence2 they heard in the   
thunder the sound of his beaten         
water-jar1 or the tumult of his chariot 
wheels2 and when a sudden flight of wild
 duck1 or of crows1 passed over their   
heads1 they thought they were gazing at 
the dead hastening to their rest2 while 
they dreamed of so great a mystery in   
little things that they believed the    
waving of a hand1 or of a sacred bough1 
enough to trouble far-off hearts1 or    
hood the moon with darkness4 ,all old   
literatures are full of these or of like
 imaginations1 and all the poets of     

races1 who have not lost this way of    
looking at things1 could have said of   
themselves1 as the poet of the ,kalevala
 said of himself1 ',i have learned my   
songs from the music of many birds1 and 
from the music of many waters4' ,when a 
mother in the ,kalevala weeps for a     
daughter1 who was drowned flying from an
 old suitor1 she weeps so greatly that  
her tears become three rivers1 and cast 
up three rocks1 on which grow three     
birch-trees1 where three cuckoos sit and
 sing1 the one 'love1 love1' the one    
'suitor1 suitor1' the one 'consolation1 
consolation4' ,and the makers of the    
,sagas made the squirrel run up and down
 the sacred ash-tree carrying words of  
hatred from the eagle to the worm1 and  
from the worm to the eagle2 although    
they had less of the old way than the   
makers of the ,kalavala1 for they lived 
in a more crowded and complicated world1
 and were learning the abstract         
meditation which lures men from visible 
beauty1 and were unlearning1 it may be1 

the impassioned meditation which brings 
men beyond the edge of trance and makes 
trees1 and beasts1 and dead things talk 
with human voices4  ,the old ,irish and 
the old ,welsh1 though they had less of 
the old way than the makers of the      
,kalavala1 had more of it than the      
makers of the ,sagas1 and it is this    
that distinguishes the examples ,matthew
 ,arnold quotes of their 'natural       
magic1' of their sense of 'the mystery' 
more than of 'the beauty' of nature4    
,when ,matthew ,arnold wrote it was not 
easy to know as much as we know now of  
folk song and folk belief1 and ,i do not
 think he understood that our 'natural  
magic' is but the ancient religion of   
the world1 the ancient worship of nature
 and that troubled ecstasy before her1  
that certainty of all beautiful places  
being haunted1 which it brought into    
men's minds4 ,the ancient religion is in
 that passage of the ,mabinogion about  
the making of ',flower ,aspect4'        
,gwydion and ,math made her 'by charms  

and illusions' 'out of flowers4' ',they 
took the blossoms of the oak1 and the   
blossoms of the broom1 and the blossoms 
of the meadow-sweet1 and produced from  
them a maiden the fairest and most      
graceful that man ever saw2 and they    
baptized her1 and called her ,flower    
,aspect'2 and one finds it in the not   
less beautiful passage about the burning
 ,tree1 that has half its beauty from   
calling up a fancy of leaves so living  
and beautiful1 they can be of no less   
living and beautiful a thing than flame3
 ',they saw a tall tree by the side of  
the river1 one half of which was in     
flames from the root to the top1 and the
 other half was green and in full leaf4'
 ,and one finds it very certainly in the
 quotations he makes from ,english poets
 to prove a ,celtic influence in        
,english poetry2 in ,keats's 'magic     
casements opening on the foam of        
perilous seas in faery lands forlorn'2  
in his 'moving waters at their          
priest-like task of pure ablution round 

earth's human shore'2 in ,shakespeare's 
'floor of heaven1' 'inlaid with patens  
of bright gold'2 and in his ,dido       
standing 'on the wild sea banks1' 'a    
willow in her hand1' and waving it in   
the ritual of the old worship of nature 
and the spirits of nature1 to wave 'her 
love to come again to ,carthage4' ,and  
his other examples have the delight and 
wonder of devout worshippers among the  
haunts of their divinities4 ,is there   
not such delight and wonder in the      
description of ,olwen in the            
,mabinogion3 ',more yellow was her hair 
than the flower of the broom1 and her   
skin was whiter than the foam of the    
wave1 and fairer were her hands and her 
fingers than the blossoms of the        
wood-anemone amidst the spray of the    
meadow fountains4' ,and is there not    
such delight and wonder in--    ',meet  
we on hill1 in dale1 forest1 or mead1   
,by paved fountain or by rushy brook1   
,or on the beached margent of the sea'8 
,if men had never dreamed that fair     

women could be made out of flowers1 or  
rise up out of meadow fountains and     
paved fountains1 neither passage could  
have been written4 ,certainly1 the      
descriptions of nature made in what     
,matthew ,arnold calls 'the faithful    
way1' or in what he calls 'the ,greek   
way1' would have lost nothing if all the
 meadow fountains or paved fountains    
were meadow fountains and paved         
fountains and nothing more4 ,when ,keats
 wrote1 in the ,greek way1 which adds   
lightness and brightness to nature--    
',what little town by river or sea-shore
   ,or mountain built with quiet        
citadel1   ,is emptied of its folk1 this
 pious morn'2  when ,shakespeare wrote  
in the ,greek way--    ',i know a bank  
where the wild thyme blows1   ,where    
oxlips and the nodding violet grows'2   
when ,virgil wrote in the ,greek way--  
',muscosi fontes et somno mollior       
herba1'  and    ',pallentes violas et   
summa papavera carpens   ,narcissum et  
florem jungit bene olentis anethi'2     

they looked at nature without ecstasy1  
but with the affection a man feels for  
the garden where he has walked daily and
 thought pleasant thoughts4 ,they looked
 at nature in the modern way1 the way of
 people who are poetical1 but are more  
interested in one another than in a     
nature which has faded to be but        
friendly and pleasant1 the way of people
 who have forgotten the ancient         
religion4   ,,iii  ,men who lived in a  
world where anything might flow and     
change1 and become any other thing2 and 
among great gods whose passions were in 
the flaming sunset1 and in the thunder  
and the thunder-shower1 had not our     
thoughts of weight and measure4 ,they   
worshipped nature and the abundance of  
nature1 and had always1 as it seems1 for
 a supreme ritual that tumultuous dance 
among the hills or in the depths of the 
woods1 where unearthly ecstasy fell upon
 the dancers1 until they seemed the gods
 or the godlike beasts1 and felt their  
souls overtopping the moon2 and1 as some

 think1 imagined for the first time in  
the world the blessed country of the    
gods and of the happy dead4 ,they had   
imaginative passions because they did   
not live within our own strait limits1  
and were nearer to ancient chaos1 every 
man's desire1 and had immortal models   
about them4 ,the hare that ran by among 
the dew might have sat upon his haunches
 when the first man was made1 and the   
poor bunch of rushes under their feet   
might have been a goddess laughing among
 the stars2 and with but a little magic1
 a little waving of the hands1 a little 
murmuring of the lips1 they too could   
become a hare or a bunch of rushes1 and 
know immortal love and immortal hatred4 
,all folk literature1 and all literature
 that keeps the folk tradition1 delights
 in unbounded and immortal things4 ,the 
,kalevala delights in the seven hundred 
years that ,luonaton wanders in the     
depths of the sea with ,winminen in her 
womb1 and the ,mahomedan king in the    
,song of ,roland1 pondering upon the    

greatness of ,charlemagne1 repeats over 
and over1 ',he is three hundred years   
old1 when will he weary of war8'        
,cuchulain in the ,irish folk tale had  
the passion of victory1 and he overcame 
all men1 and died warring upon the      
waves1 because they alone had the       
strength to overcome him4 ,the lover in 
the ,irish folk song bids his beloved   
come with him into the woods1 and see   
the salmon leap in the rivers1 and hear 
the cuckoo sing1 because death will     
never find them in the heart of the     
woods4 ,oisin1 new come from his three  
hundred years of faeryland1 and of the  
love that is in faeryland1 bids ,st4    
,patrick cease his prayers a while and  
listen to the blackbird1 because it is  
the blackbird of ,darrycarn that ,finn  
brought from ,norway1 three hundred     
years before1 and set its nest upon the 
oak-tree with his own hands4 ,surely if 
one goes far enough into the woods1 one 
will find there all that one is seeking8
 ,who knows how many centuries the birds

 of the woods have been singing8  ,all  
folk literature has indeed a passion    
whose like is not in modern literature  
and music and art1 except where it has  
come by some straight or crooked way out
 of ancient times4 ,love was held to be 
a fatal sickness in ancient ,ireland1   
and there is a love-poem in ,the ,songs 
of ,connacht that is like a death cry3  
',my love1 ,o she is my love1 the woman 
who is most for destroying me1 dearer is
 she for making me ill than the woman   
who would be for making me well4 ,she is
 my treasure1 ,o she is my treasure1 the
 woman of the grey eyes 444 a woman who 
would not lay a hand under my head4444  
,she is my love1 ,o she is my love1 the 
woman who left no strength in me2 a     
woman who would not breathe a sigh after
 me1 a woman who would not raise a stone
 at my tomb4444 ,she is my secret love1 
,o she is my secret love4 ,a woman who  
tells me nothing1444 a woman who does   
not remember me to be out4444 ,she is my
 choice1 ,o she is my choice1 the woman 

who would not look back at me1 the woman
 who would not make peace with me4444   
,she is my desire1 ,o she is my desire3 
a woman dearest to me under the sun1 a  
woman who would not pay me heed1 if ,i  
were to sit by her side4 ,it is she     
ruined my heart and left a sigh for ever
 in me4' ,there is another song that    
ends1 ',the ,erne shall be in strong    
flood1 the hills shall be torn down1 and
 the sea shall have red waves1 and blood
 shall be spilled1 and every mountain   
valley and every moor shall be on high1 
before you shall perish1 my little black
 rose4' ,nor do the old ,irish weigh and
 measure their hatred4 ,the nurse of    
,o',sullivan ,bere in the folk song     
prays that the bed of his betrayer may  
be the red hearth-stone of hell for     
ever4 ,and an ,elizabethan ,irish poet  
cries3 ',three things are waiting for my
 death4 ,the devil1 who is waiting for  
my soul and cares nothing for my body or
 my wealth2 the worms1 who are waiting  
for my body but care nothing for my soul

 or my wealth2 my children1 who are     
waiting for my wealth and care nothing  
for my body or my soul4 ,o ,christ1 hang
 all three in the one noose4' ,such love
 and hatred seek no mortal thing but    
their own infinity1 and such love and   
hatred soon become love and hatred of   
the idea4 ,the lover who loves so       
passionately can soon sing to his       
beloved like the lover in the poem by   
',a4 ,e41' ',a vast desire awakes and   
grows into forgetfulness of thee4'      
,when an early ,irish poet calls the    
,irishman famous for much loving1 and a 
proverb1 a friend has heard in the      
,highlands of ,scotland1 talks of the   
lovelessness of the ,irishman1 they may 
say but the same thing1 for if your     
passion is but great enough it leads you
 to a country where there are many      
cloisters4 ,the hater who hates with too
 good a heart soon comes also to hate   
the idea only2 and from this idealism in
 love and hatred comes1 as ,i think1 a  
certain power of saying and forgetting  

things1 especially a power of saying and
 forgetting things in politics1 which   
others do not say and forget4 ,the      
ancient farmers and herdsmen were full  
of love and hatred1 and made their      
friends gods1 and their enemies the     
enemies of gods1 and those who keep     
their tradition are not less            
mythological4 ,from this 'mistaking     
dreams1' which are perhaps essences1 for
 'realities' which are perhaps          
accidents1 from this 'passionate1       
turbulent reaction against the despotism
 of fact1' comes1 it may be1 that       
melancholy which made all ancient       
peoples delight in tales that end in    
death and parting1 as modern peoples    
delight in tales that end in marriage   
bells2 and made all ancient peoples1 who
 like the old ,irish had a nature more  
lyrical than dramatic1 delight in wild  
and beautiful lamentations4 ,life was so
 weighed down by the emptiness of the   
great forests and by the mystery of all 
things1 and by the greatness of its own 

desires1 and1 as ,i think1 by the       
loneliness of much beauty2 and seemed so
 little and so fragile and so brief1    
that nothing could be more sweet in the 
memory than a tale that ended in death  
and parting1 and than a wild and        
beautiful lamentation4 ,men did not     
mourn merely because their beloved was  
married to another1 or because learning 
was bitter in the mouth1 for such       
mourning believes that life might be    
happy were it different1 and is         
therefore the less mourning2 but because
 they had been born and must die with   
their great thirst unslaked4 ,and so it 
is that all the august sorrowful persons
 of literature1 ,cassandra and ,helen   
and ,deirdre1 and ,lear and ,tristan1   
have come out of legends and are indeed 
but the images of the primitive         
imagination mirrored in the little      
looking-glass of the modern and classic 
imagination4 ,this is that 'melancholy a
 man knows when he is face to face' with
 nature1 and thinks 'he hears her       

communing with him about' the           
mournfulness of being born and of dying2
 and how can it do otherwise than call  
into his mind 'its exiles1 its flights  
across the seas1' that it may stir the  
ever-smouldering ashes8 ,no ,gaelic     
poetry is so popular in ,gaelic-speaking
 places as the lamentations of ,oisin1  
old and miserable1 remembering the      
companions and the loves of his youth1  
and his three hundred years in          
faeryland1 and his faery love3 all      
dreams withering in the winds of time   
lament in his lamentations3 ',the clouds
 are long above me this night2 last     
night was a long night to me2 although  
,i find this day long1 yesterday was    
still longer4 ,every day that comes to  
me is long4444 ,no one in this great    
world is like me--a poor old man        
dragging stones4 ,the clouds are long   
above me this night4 ,i am the last man 
of the ,fianna1 the great ,oisin1 the   
son of ,finn1 listening to the sound of 
bells4 ,the clouds are long above me    

this night4' ,matthew ,arnold quotes the
 lamentation of ,leyrach ,hen as a type 
of the ,celtic melancholy1 but ,i prefer
 to quote it as a type of the primitive 
melancholy2 ',o my crutch1 is it not    
autumn when the fern is red and the     
water flag yellow8 ,have ,i not hated   
that which ,i love8444 ,behold1 old age1
 which makes sport of me1 from the hair 
of my head and my teeth1 to my eyes     
which women loved4 ,the four things ,i  
have all my life most hated fall upon me
 together--coughing and old age1        
sickness and sorrow4 ,i am old1 ,i am   
alone1 shapeliness and warmth are gone  
from me1 the couch of honour shall be no
 more mine2 ,i am miserable1 ,i am bent 
on my crutch4 ,how evil was the lot     
allotted to ,leyrach1 the night he was  
brought forth6 ,sorrows without end and 
no deliverance from his burden4' ,an    
,elizabethan writer describes           
extravagant sorrow by calling it 'to    
weep ,irish'2 and ,oisin and ,leyrach   
,hen are1 ,i think1 a little nearer even

 to us modern ,irish than they are to   
most people4 ,that is why our poetry and
 much of our thought is melancholy4     
',the same man1' writes ,dr4 ,hyde in   
the beautiful prose which he first      
writes in ,gaelic1 'who will to-day be  
dancing1 sporting1 drinking1 and        
shouting1 will be soliloquizing by      
himself to-morrow1 heavy and sick and   
sad in his own lonely little hut1 making
 a croon over departed hopes1 lost life1
 the vanity of this world1 and the      
coming of death4'   ,,iv  ,matthew      
,arnold asks how much of the ,celt must 
one imagine in the ideal man of genius4 
,i prefer to say1 how much of the       
ancient hunters and fishers and of the  
ecstatic dancers among hills and woods  
must one imagine in the ideal man of    
genius4 ,certainly a thirst for         
unbounded emotion and a wild melancholy 
are troublesome things in the world1 and
 do not make its life more easy or      
orderly1 but it may be the arts are     
founded on the life beyond the world1   

and that they must cry in the ears of   
our penury until the world has been     
consumed and become a vision4           
,certainly1 as ,samuel ,palmer wrote1   
',excess is the vivifying spirit of the 
finest art1 and we must always seek to  
make excess more abundantly excessive4' 
,matthew ,arnold has said that if he    
were asked 'where ,english got its turn 
for melancholy and its turn for natural 
magic1' he 'would answer with little    
doubt that it got much of its melancholy
 from a ,celtic source1 with no doubt at
 all that from a ,celtic source is got  
nearly all its natural magic4'  ,i will 
put this differently and say that       
literature dwindles to a mere chronicle 
of circumstance1 or passionless         
phantasies1 and passionless meditations1
 unless it is constantly flooded with   
the passions and beliefs of ancient     
times1 and that of all the fountains of 
the passions and beliefs of ancient     
times in ,europe1 the ,sclavonic1 the   
,finnish1 the ,scandinavian1 and the    

,celtic1 the ,celtic alone has been for 
centuries close to the main river of    
,european literature4 ,it has again and 
again brought 'the vivifying spirit' 'of
 excess' into the arts of ,europe4      
,ernest ,renan has told how the visions 
of purgatory seen by pilgrims to ,lough 
,derg--once visions of the pagan        
under-world1 as the boat made out of a  
hollow tree that bore the pilgrim to the
 holy island were alone enough to       
prove--gave ,european thought new       
symbols of a more abundant penitence2   
and had so great an influence that he   
has written1 ',it cannot be doubted for 
a moment that to the number of poetical 
themes ,europe owes to the genius of the
 ,celt is to be added the framework of  
the divine comedy4'  ,a little later the
 legends of ,arthur and his table1 and  
of the ,holy ,grail1 once it seems the  
cauldron of an ,irish ,god1 changed the 
literature of ,europe1 and it may be    
changed1 as it were1 the very roots of  
man's emotions by their influence on the

 spirit of chivalry and on the spirit of
 romance2 and later still ,shakespeare  
found his ,mab1 and probably his ,puck1 
and one knows not how much else of his  
faery kingdom1 in ,celtic legend2 while 
at the beginning of our own day ,sir    
,walter ,scott gave ,highland legends   
and ,highland excitability so great a   
mastery over all romance that they seem 
romance herself4  ,in our own time      
,scandinavian tradition1 because of the 
imagination of ,richard ,wagner and of  
,william ,morris and of the earlier and1
 as ,i think1 greater ,heinrich ,ibsen1 
has created a new romance1 and through  
the imagination of ,richard ,wagner1    
become all but the most passionate      
element in the arts of the modern world4
 ,there is indeed but one other element 
as passionate1 the still unfaded legends
 of ,arthur and of the ,holy ,grail2 and
 now a new fountain of legends1 and1 as 
,i think1 a more abundant fountain than 
any in ,europe1 is being opened1 the    
great fountain of ,gaelic legends2 the  

tale of ,deirdre1 who alone among the   
women who have set men mad was at once  
the white flame and the red flame1      
wisdom and loveliness2 the tale of the  
,sons of ,tuireann1 with its            
unintelligible mysteries1 an old ,grail 
,quest as ,i think2 the tale of the four
 children changed into four swans1 and  
lamenting over many waters2 the tale of 
the love of ,cuchulain for an immortal  
goddess1 and his coming home to a mortal
 woman in the end2 the tale of his many 
battles at the ford with that dear      
friend he kissed before the battles1 and
 over whose dead body he wept when he   
had killed him2 the tale of his death   
and of the lamentations of ,emer2 the   
tale of the flight of ,grainne with     
,diarmuid1 strangest of all tales of the
 fickleness of woman1 and the tale of   
the coming of ,oisin out of faeryland1  
and of his memories and lamentations4   
',the ,celtic movement1' as ,i          
understand it1 is principally the       
opening of this fountain1 and none can  

measure of how great importance it may  
be to coming times1 for every new       
fountain of legends is a new            
intoxication for the imagination of the 
world4 ,it comes at a time when the     
imagination of the world is as ready1 as
 it was at the coming of the tales of   
,arthur and of the ,grail1 for a new    
intoxication4 ,the reaction against the 
rationalism of the eighteenth century   
has mingled with a reaction against the 
materialism of the nineteenth century1  
and the symbolical movement1 which has  
come to perfection in ,germany in       
,wagner1 in ,england in the             
,pre-,raphaelites1 and in ,france in    
,villiers ,de l',isle ,adam1 and        
,mallarm1 and ,maeterlinck1 and has     
stirred the imagination of ,ibsen and   
,d',annunzio1 is certainly the only     
movement that is saying new things4 ,the
 arts by brooding upon their own        
intensity have become religious1 and are
 seeking1 as ,i think ,verhaeren has    
said1 to create a sacred book4 ,they    

must1 as religious thought has always   
done1 utter themselves through legends2 
and the ,sclavonic and ,finnish legends 
tell of strange woods and seas1 and the 
,scandinavian legends are held by a     
great master1 and tell also of strange  
woods and seas1 and the ,welsh legends  
are held by almost as many great masters
 as the ,greek legends1 while the ,irish
 legends move among known woods and     
seas1 and have so much of a new beauty1 
that they may well give the opening     
century its most memorable symbols4     
#ahig4   ,i could have written this     
essay with much more precision and have 
much better illustrated my meaning if ,i
 had waited until ,lady ,gregory had    
finished her book of legends1 ,cuchulain
 of ,muirthemne1 a book to set beside   
the ,morte ,d',arthur and the           
,mabinogion4  #aijb4     ,,the ,,autumn 
,,of ,,the ,,body   ,our thoughts and   
emotions are often but spray flung up   
from hidden tides that follow a moon no 
eye can see4 ,i remember that when ,i   

first began to write ,i desired to      
describe outward things as vividly as   
possible1 and took pleasure1 in which   
there was1 perhaps1 a little discontent1
 in picturesque and declamatory books4  
,and then quite suddenly ,i lost the    
desire of describing outward things1 and
 found that ,i took little pleasure in a
 book unless it was spiritual and       
unemphatic4 ,i did not then understand  
that the change was from beyond my own  
mind1 but ,i understand now that writers
 are struggling all over ,europe1 though
 not often with a philosophic           
understanding of their struggle1 against
 that picturesque and declamatory way of
 writing1 against that 'externality'    
which a time of scientific and political
 thought has brought into literature4   
,this struggle has been going on for    
some years1 but it has only just become 
strong enough to draw within itself the 
little inner world which alone seeks    
more than amusement in the arts4 ,in    
,france1 where movements are more       

marked1 because the people are          
pre-eminently logical1 ,the ,temptation 
of ,s4 ,anthony1 the last great dramatic
 invention of the old romanticism1      
contrasts very plainly with ,axl1 the   
first great dramatic invention of the   
new2 and ,maeterlinck has followed      
,count ,villiers de l',isle ,adam4      
,flaubert wrote unforgettable           
descriptions of grotesque1 bizarre1 and 
beautiful scenes and persons1 as they   
show to the ear and to the eye1 and     
crowded them with historic and          
ethnographical details2 but ,count      
,villiers de l',isle ,adam swept        
together1 by what seemed a sudden       
energy1 words behind which glimmered a  
spiritual and passionate mood1 as the   
flame glimmers behind the dusky blue and
 red glass in an ,eastern lamp2 and     
created persons from whom has fallen all
 even of personal characteristic except 
a thirst for that hour when all things  
shall pass away like a cloud1 and a     
pride like that of the ,magi following  

their star over many mountains2 while   
,maeterlinck has plucked away even this 
thirst and this pride and set before us 
faint souls1 naked and pathetic shadows 
already half vapour and sighing to one  
another upon the border of the last     
abyss4 ,there has been1 as ,i think1 a  
like change in ,french painting1 for one
 sees everywhere1 instead of the        
dramatic stories and picturesque moments
 of an older school1 frail and tremulous
 bodies unfitted for the labour of life1
 and landscape where subtle rhythms of  
colour and of form have overcome the    
clear outline of things as we see them  
in the labour of life4  ,there has been 
a like change in ,england1 but it has   
come more gradually and is more mixed   
with lesser changes than in ,france4    
,the poetry which found its expression  
in the poems of writers like ,browning  
and of ,tennyson1 and even of writers1  
who are seldom classed with them1 like  
,swinburne1 and like ,shelley in his    
earlier years1 pushed its limits as far 

as possible1 and tried to absorb into   
itself the science and politics1 the    
philosophy and morality of its time2 but
 a new poetry1 which is always          
contracting its limits1 has grown up    
under the shadow of the old4 ,rossetti  
began it1 but was too much of a painter 
in his poetry to follow it with a       
perfect devotion2 and it became a       
movement when ,mr4 ,lang and ,mr4 ,gosse
 and ,mr4 ,dobson devoted themselves to 
the most condensed of lyric poems1 and  
when ,mr4 ,bridges1 a more considerable 
poet1 elaborated a rhythm too delicate  
for any but an almost bodiless emotion1 
and repeated over and over the most     
ancient notes of poetry1 and none but   
these4 ,the poets who followed have     
either1 like ,mr4 ,kipling1 turned from 
serious poetry altogether1 and so passed
 out of the processional order1 or speak
 out of some personal or spiritual      
passion in words and types and metaphors
 that draw one's imagination as far as  
possible from the complexities of modern

 life and thought4 ,the change has been 
more marked in ,english painting1 which1
 when intense enough to belong to the   
procession order1 began to cast out     
things1 as they are seen by minds       
plunged in the labour of life1 so much  
before ,french painting that ideal art  
is sometimes called ,english art upon   
the ,continent4  ,i see1 indeed1 in the 
arts of every country those faint lights
 and faint colours and faint outlines   
and faint energies which many call 'the 
decadence1' and which ,i1 because ,i    
believe that the arts lie dreaming of   
things to come1 prefer to call the      
autumn of the body4 ,an ,irish poet     
whose rhythms are like the cry of a     
sea-bird in autumn twilight has told its
 meaning in the line1 ',the very        
sunlight's weary1 and it's time to quit 
the plough4' ,its importance is the     
greater because it comes to us at the   
moment when we are beginning to be      
interested in many things which positive
 science1 the interpreter of exterior   

law1 has always denied3 communion of    
mind with mind in thought and without   
words1 foreknowledge in dreams and in   
visions1 and the coming among us of the 
dead1 and of much else4 ,we are1 it may 
be1 at a crowning crisis of the world1  
at the moment when man is about to      
ascend1 with the wealth1 he has been so 
long gathering1 upon his shoulders1 the 
stairway he has been descending from the
 first days4 ,the first poets1 if one   
may find their images in the ,kalevala1 
had not ,homer's preoccupation with     
things1 and he was not so full of their 
excitement as ,virgil4 ,dante added to  
poetry a dialectic which1 although he   
made it serve his laborious ecstasy1 was
 the invention of minds trained by the  
labour of life1 by a traffic among many 
things1 and not a spontaneous expression
 of an interior life2 while ,shakespeare
 shattered the symmetry of verse and of 
drama that he might fill them with      
things and their accidental relations to
 one another4  ,each of these writers   

had come further down the stairway than 
those who had lived before him1 but it  
was only with the modern poets1 with    
,goethe and ,wordsworth and ,browning1  
that poetry gave up the right to        
consider all things in the world as a   
dictionary of types and symbols and     
began to call itself a critic of life   
and an interpreter of things as they    
are4 ,painting1 music1 science1         
politics1 and even religion1 because    
they have felt a growing belief that we 
know nothing but the fading and         
flowering of the world1 have changed in 
numberless elaborate ways4 ,man has     
wooed and won the world1 and has fallen 
weary1 and not1 ,i think1 for a time1   
but with a weariness that will not end  
until the last autumn1 when the stars   
shall be blown away like withered       
leaves4 ,he grew weary when he said1    
',these things that ,i touch and see and
 hear are alone real1' for he saw them  
without illusion at last1 and found them
 but air and dust and moisture4 ,and now

 he must be philosophical above         
everything1 even about the arts1 for he 
can only return the way he came1 and so 
escape from weariness1 by philosophy4   
,the arts are1 ,i believe1 about to take
 upon their shoulders the burdens that  
have fallen from the shoulders of       
priests1 and to lead us back upon our   
journey by filling our thoughts with the
 essences of things1 and not with       
things4 ,we are about to substitute once
 more the distillation of alchemy for   
the analyses of chemistry and for some  
other sciences2 and certain of us are   
looking everywhere for the perfect      
alembic that no silver or golden drop   
may escape4 ,mr4 ,symons has written    
lately on ,m4 ,mallarm's method1 and has
 quoted him as saying that we should    
'abolish the pretension1 sthetically an 
error1 despite its dominion over almost 
all the masterpieces1 to enclose within 
the subtle pages other than--for        
example--the horror of the forest or the
 silent thunder in the leaves1 not the  

intense dense wood of the trees1' and as
 desiring to substitute for the old     
lyric afflatus or the enthusiastic      
personal direction of the phrase' words 
'that take light from mutual reflection1
 like an actual trail of fire over      
precious stones1' and 'to make an entire
 word hitherto unknown to the language' 
'out of many vocables4' ,mr4 ,symons    
understands these and other sentences to
 mean that poetry will henceforth be a  
poetry of essences1 separated one from  
another in little and intense poems4 ,i 
think there will be much poetry of this 
kind1 because of an ever more arduous   
search for an almost disembodied        
ecstasy1 but ,i think we will not cease 
to write long poems1 but rather that we 
will write them more and more as our new
 belief makes the world plastic under   
our hands again4 ,i think that we will  
learn again how to describe at great    
length an old man wandering among       
enchanted islands1 his return home at   
last1 his slow-gathering vengeance1 a   

flitting shape of a goddess1 and a      
flight of arrows1 and yet to make all of
 these so different things 'take light  
by mutual reflection1 like an actual    
trail of fire over precious stones1' and
 become 'an entire word1' the signature 
or symbol of a mood of the divine       
imagination as imponderable as 'the     
horror of the forest or the silent      
thunder in the leaves4'  #ahih4         
,,the ,,moods   ,literature differs from
 explanatory and scientific writing in  
being wrought about a mood1 or a        
community of moods1 as the body is      
wrought about an invisible soul2 and if 
it uses argument1 theory1 erudition1    
observation1 and seems to grow hot in   
assertion or denial1 it does so merely  
to make us partakers at the banquet of  
the moods4 ,it seems to me that these   
moods are the labourers and messengers  
of the ,ruler of ,all1 the gods of      
ancient days still dwelling on their    
secret ,olympus1 the angels of more     
modern days ascending and descending    

upon their shining ladder2 and that     
argument1 theory1 erudition1            
observation1 are merely what ,blake     
called 'little devils who fight for     
themselves1' illusions of our visible   
passing life1 who must be made serve the
 moods1 or we have no part in eternity4 
,everything that can be seen1 touched1  
measured1 explained1 understood1 argued 
over1 is to the imaginative artist      
nothing more than a means1 for he       
belongs to the invisible life1 and      
delivers its ever new and ever ancient  
revelation4 ,we hear much of his need   
for the restraints of reason1 but the   
only restraint he can obey is the       
mysterious instinct that has made him an
 artist1 and that teaches him to        
discover immortal moods in mortal       
desires1 an undecaying hope in our      
trivial ambitions1 a divine love in     
sexual passion4  #ahie4     ,,the ,,body
 ,,of ,,the ,,father ,,christian        
,,rosencrux   ,the followers of the     
,father ,christian ,rosencrux1 says the 

old tradition1 wrapped his imperishable 
body in noble raiment and laid it under 
the house of their order1 in a tomb     
containing the symbols of all things in 
heaven and earth1 and in the waters     
under the earth1 and set about him      
inextinguishable magical lamps1 which   
burnt on generation after generation1   
until other students of the order came  
upon the tomb by chance4 ,it seems to me
 that the imagination has had no very   
different history during the last two   
hundred years1 but has been laid in a   
great tomb of criticism1 and had set    
over it inextinguishable magical lamps  
of wisdom and romance1 and has been     
altogether so nobly housed and          
apparelled that we have forgotten that  
its wizard lips are closed1 or but      
opened for the complaining of some      
melancholy and ghostly voice4 ,the      
ancients and the ,elizabethans abandoned
 themselves to imagination as a woman   
abandons herself to love1 and created   
great beings who made the people of this

 world seem but shadows1 and great      
passions which made our loves and       
hatreds appear but ephemeral and trivial
 phantasies2 but now it is not the great
 persons1 or the great passions we      
imagine1 which absorb us1 for the       
persons and passions in our poems are   
mainly reflections our mirror has caught
 from older poems or from the life about
 us1 but the wise comments we make upon 
them1 the criticism of life we wring    
from their fortunes4 ,arthur and his    
,court are nothing1 but the             
many-coloured lights that play about    
them are as beautiful as the lights from
 cathedral windows2 ,pompilia and ,guido
 are but little1 while the              
ever-recurring meditations and          
expositions which climax in the mouth of
 the ,pope are among the wisest of the  
,christian age4 ,i cannot get it out of 
my mind that this age of criticism is   
about to pass1 and an age of            
imagination1 of emotion1 of moods1 of   
revelation1 about to come in its place2 

for certainly belief in a supersensual  
world is at hand again2 and when the    
notion that we are 'phantoms of the     
earth and water' has gone down the wind1
 we will trust our own being and all it 
desires to invent2 and when the external
 world is no more the standard of       
reality1 we will learn again that the   
great ,passions are angels of ,god1 and 
that to embody them 'uncurbed in their  
eternal glory1' even in their labour for
 the ending of man's peace and          
prosperity1 is more than to comment1    
however wisely1 upon the tendencies of  
our time1 or to express the socialistic1
 or humanitarian1 or other forces of our
 time1 or even 'to sum up' our time1 as 
the phrase is2 for ,art is a revelation1
 and not a criticism1 and the life of   
the artist is in the old saying1 ',the  
wind bloweth where it listeth1 and thou 
hearest the sound thereof1 but canst not
 tell whence it cometh and whither it   
goeth2 so is every one that is born of  
the spirit4'  #ahie4     ,,the ,,return 

,,of ,,ulysses   ,i  ,m4 ,maeterlinck1  
in his beautiful ,treasure of the       
,humble1 compares the dramas of our     
stage to the paintings of an obsolete   
taste2 and the dramas of the stage for  
which he hopes1 to the paintings of a   
taste that cannot become obsolete4 ',the
 true artist1' he says1 'no longer      
chooses ,marius triumphing over the     
,cimbrians1 or the assassination of the 
,duke of ,guise1 as fit subjects for his
 art2 for he is well aware that the     
psychology of victory or murder is but  
elementary and exceptional1 and that the
 solemn voice of men and things1 the    
voice that issues forth so timidly and  
hesitatingly1 cannot be heard amidst the
 idle uproar of acts of violence4 ,and  
therefore will he place on his canvas a 
house lost in the heart of the country1 
a door open at the end of a passage1 a  
face or hands at rest4' ,i do not       
understand him to mean that our dramas  
should have no victories or murders1 for
 he quotes for our example plays that   

have both1 but only that their victories
 and murders shall not be to excite our 
nerves1 but to illustrate the reveries  
of a wisdom which shall be as much a    
part of the daily life of the wise as a 
face or hands at rest4 ,and certainly   
the greater plays of the past ages have 
been built after such a fashion4 ,if    
this fashion is about to become our     
fashion also1 and there are signs that  
it is1 plays like some of ,mr4 ,robert  
,bridges will come out of that obscurity
 into which all poetry1 that is not     
lyrical poetry1 has fallen1 and even    
popular criticism will begin to know    
something about them4 ,some day the few 
among us1 who care for poetry more than 
any temporal thing1 and who believe that
 its delights cannot be perfect when we 
read it alone in our rooms and long for 
one to share its delights1 but that they
 might be perfect in the theatre1 when  
we share them friend with friend1 lover 
with beloved1 will persuade a few       
idealists to seek out the lost art of   

speaking1 and seek out ourselves the    
lost art1 that is perhaps nearest of all
 arts to eternity1 the subtle art of    
listening4 ,when that day comes we will 
talk much of ,mr4 ,bridges2 for did he  
not write scrupulous1 passionate poetry 
to be sung and to be spoken1 when there 
were few to sing and as yet none to     
speak8 ,there is one play especially1   
,the ,return of ,ulysses1 which we will 
praise for perfect after its kind1 the  
kind of our new drama of wisdom1 for it 
moulds into dramatic shape1 and with as 
much as possible of literal translation1
 those closing books of the ,odyssey    
which are perhaps the most perfect      
poetry of the world1 and compels that   
great tide of song to flow through      
delicate dramatic verse1 with little    
abatement of its own leaping and        
clamorous speed4 ,as ,i read1 the       
gathering passion overwhelms me1 as it  
did when ,homer himself was the singer1 
and when ,i read at last the lines in   
which the maid describes to ,penelope   

the battle with the suitors1 at which   
she looks through the open door1 ,i     
tremble with excitement4    ',penelope3 
,alas6 what cries6 ,say1 is the prince  
still safe8    ,the ,maid3 ,he shieldeth
 himself well1 and striketh surely2     
,his foes fall down before him4 ,ah6 now
 what can ,i see8   ,who cometh8 ,lo6 a 
dazzling helm1 a spear   ,of silver or  
electron2 sharp and swift   ,the        
piercings4 ,how they fall6 ,ha6 shields 
are raised   ,in vain4 ,i am blinded1 or
 the beggar-man   ,hath waxed in        
strength4 ,he is changed1 he is young4  
,o strange6   ,he is all in golden      
armour4 ,these are gods   ,that slay the
 suitors4 7,runs to ,penelope47 ,o lady1
 forgive me4   ,tis ,ares' self4 ,i saw 
his crispd beard2   ,i saw beneath his  
helm his curld locks4'  ,the coming of  
,athene helmed 'in silver or electron'  
and her transformation of ,ulysses are  
not1 as the way is with the only modern 
dramas that popular criticism holds to  
be dramatic1 the climax of an excitement

 of the nerves1 but of that unearthly   
excitement which has wisdom for fruit1  
and is of like kind with the ecstasy of 
the seers1 an altar flame1 unshaken by  
the winds of the world1 and burning     
every moment with whiter and purer      
brilliance4  ,mr4 ,bridges has written  
it in what is practically the classical 
manner1 as he has done in ,achilles in  
,scyros--a placid and charming setting  
for many placid and charming lyrics--   
',and ever we keep a feast of delight   
,the betrothal of hearts1 when spirits  
unite1   ,creating an offspring of joy1 
a treasure       ,unknown to the bad1   
for whom       ,the gods foredoom       
,the glitter of pleasure       ,and a   
dark tomb4'  ,the poet who writes best  
in the ,shakespearian manner is a poet  
with a circumstantial and instinctive   
mind1 who delights to speak with strange
 voices and to see his mind in the      
mirror of ,nature2 while ,mr4 ,bridges1 
like most of us to-day1 has a lyrical   
and meditative mind1 and delights to    

speak with his own voice and to see     
,nature in the mirror of his mind4 ,in  
reading his plays in a ,shakespearian   
manner1 ,i find that he is constantly   
arranging his story in such and such a  
way because he has read that the persons
 he is writing of did such and such     
things1 and not because his soul has    
passed into the soul of their world and 
understood its unchangeable destinies4  
,his ,return of ,ulysses is admirable in
 beauty1 because its classical gravity  
of speech1 which does not1 like         
,shakespeare's verse1 desire the        
vivacity of common life1 purifies and   
subdues all passion into lyrical and    
meditative ecstasies1 and because the   
unity of place and time in the late acts
 compels a logical rather than          
instinctive procession of incidents2 and
 if the ,shakespearian ,nero3 ,second   
,part approaches it in beauty and in    
dramatic power1 it is because it eddies 
about ,nero and ,seneca1 who had both1  
to a great extent1 lyrical and          

meditative minds4 ,had ,mr4 ,bridges    
been a true ,shakespearian1 the pomp and
 glory of the world would have drowned  
that subtle voice that speaks amid our  
heterogeneous lives of a life lived in  
obedience to a lonely and distinguished 
ideal4   ,,ii  ,the more a poet rids his
 verses of heterogeneous knowledge and  
irrelevant analysis1 and purifies his   
mind with elaborate art1 the more does  
the little ritual of his verse resemble 
the great ritual of ,nature1 and become 
mysterious and inscrutable4 ,he becomes1
 as all the great mystics have believed1
 a vessel of the creative power of ,god2
 and whether he be a great poet or a    
small poet1 we can praise the poems1    
which but seem to be his1 with the      
extremity of praise that we give this   
great ritual which is but copied from   
the same eternal model4 ,there is poetry
 that is like the white light of noon1  
and poetry that has the heaviness of    
woods1 and poetry that has the golden   
light of dawn or of sunset2 and ,i find 

in the poetry of ,mr4 ,bridges in the   
plays1 but still more in the lyrics1 the
 pale colours1 the delicate silence1 the
 low murmurs of cloudy country days1    
when the plough is in the earth1 and the
 clouds darkening towards sunset2 and   
had ,i the great gift of praising1 ,i   
would praise it as ,i would praise these
 things4  #ahif4     ,,ireland ,,and    
,,the ,,arts   ,the arts have failed2   
fewer people are interested in them     
every generation4 ,the mere business of 
living1 of making money1 of amusing     
oneself1 occupies people more and more1 
and makes them less and less capable of 
the difficult art of appreciation4 ,when
 they buy a picture it generally shows a
 long-current idea1 or some conventional
 form that can be admired in that lax   
mood one admires a fine carriage in or  
fine horses in2 and when they buy a book
 it is so much in the manner of the     
picture that it is forgotten1 when its  
moment is over1 as a glass of wine is   
forgotten4 ,we who care deeply about the

 arts find ourselves the priesthood of  
an almost forgotten faith1 and we must1 
,i think1 if we would win the people    
again1 take upon ourselves the method   
and the fervour of a priesthood4 ,we    
must be half humble and half proud4 ,we 
see the perfect more than others1 it may
 be1 but we must find the passions among
 the people4 ,we must baptize as well as
 preach4  ,the makers of religions have 
established their ceremonies1 their form
 of art1 upon fear of death1 on the hope
 of the father in his child1 upon the   
love of man and woman4 ,they have even  
gathered into their ceremonies the      
ceremonies of more ancient faiths1 for  
fear a grain of the dust turned into    
crystal in some past fire1 a passion    
that had mingled with the religious     
idea1 might perish if the ancient       
ceremony perished4 ,they have renamed   
wells and images and given new meanings 
to ceremonies of spring and midsummer   
and harvest4 ,in very early days the    
arts were so possessed by this method   

that they were almost inseparable from  
religion1 going side by side with it    
into all life4 ,but1 to-day1 they have  
grown1 as ,i think1 too proud1 too      
anxious to live alone with the perfect1 
and so one sees them1 as ,i think1 like 
charioteers standing by deserted        
chariots and holding broken reins in    
their hands1 or seeking to go upon their
 way drawn by the one passion which     
alone remains to them out of the        
passions of the world4 ,we should not   
blame them1 but rather a mysterious     
tendency in things which will have its  
end some day4 ,in ,england1 men like    
,william ,morris1 seeing about them     
passions so long separated from the     
perfect that it seemed as if they could 
not be changed until society had been   
changed1 tried to unite the arts once   
more to life by uniting them to use4    
,they advised painters to paint fewer   
pictures upon canvas1 and to burn more  
of them on plates2 and they tried to    
persuade sculptors that a candlestick   

might be as beautiful as a statue4 ,but 
here in ,ireland1 when the arts have    
grown humble1 they will find two        
passions ready to their hands1 love of  
the ,unseen ,life and love of country4  
,i would have a devout writer or painter
 often content himself with subjects    
taken from his religious beliefs2 and if
 his religious beliefs are those of the 
majority1 he may at last move hearts in 
every cottage4 ,while even if his       
religious beliefs are those of some     
minority1 he will have a better welcome 
than if he wrote of the rape of         
,persephone1 or painted the burning of  
,shelley's body4 ,he will have founded  
his work on a passion which will bring  
him to many besides those who have been 
trained to care for beautiful things by 
a special education4 ,if he is a painter
 or a sculptor he will find churches    
awaiting his hand everywhere1 and if he 
follows the masters of his craft our    
other passion will come into his work   
also1 for he will show his ,holy ,family

 winding among hills like those of      
,ireland1 and his ,bearer of the ,cross 
among faces copied from the faces of his
 own town4 ,our art teachers should urge
 their pupils into this work1 for ,i can
 remember1 when ,i was myself a ,dublin 
art student1 how ,i used to despond1    
when eagerness burned low1 as it always 
must now and then1 at seeing no market  
at all4  ,but ,i would rather speak to  
those who1 while moved in other things  
than the arts by love of country1 are   
beginning to write1 as ,i was some      
sixteen years ago1 without any decided  
impulse to one thing more than another1 
and especially to those who are         
convinced1 as ,i was convinced1 that art
 is tribeless1 nationless1 a blossom    
gathered in ,no ,man's ,land4 ,the      
,greeks1 the only perfect artists of the
 world1 looked within their own borders1
 and we1 like them1 have a history      
fuller than any modern history of       
imaginative events2 and legends which   
surpass1 as ,i think1 all legends but   

theirs in wild beauty1 and in our land1 
as in theirs1 there is no river or      
mountain that is not associated in the  
memory with some event or legend2 while 
political reasons have made love of     
country1 as ,i think1 even greater among
 us than among them4 ,i would have our  
writers and craftsmen of many kinds     
master this history and these legends1  
and fix upon their memory the appearance
 of mountains and rivers and make it all
 visible again in their arts1 so that   
,irishmen1 even though they had gone    
thousands of miles away1 would still be 
in their own country4 ,whether they     
chose for the subject the carrying off  
of the ,brown ,bull1 or the coming of   
,patrick1 or the political struggle of  
later times1 the other world comes so   
much into it all that their love of it  
would move in their hands also1 and as  
much1 it may be1 as in the hands of the 
,greek craftsmen4 ,in other words1 ,i   
would have ,ireland recreate the ancient
 arts1 the arts as they were understood 

in ,juda1 in ,india1 in ,scandinavia1 in
 ,greece and ,rome1 in every ancient    
land2 as they were understood when they 
moved a whole people and not a few      
people who have grown up in a leisured  
class and made this understanding their 
business4  ,i think that my reader#b    
will have agreed with most that ,i have 
said up till now1 for we all hope for   
arts like these4 ,i think indeed ,i     
first learned to hope for them myself in
 ,young ,ireland ,societies1 or in      
reading the essays of ,davis4 ,an       
,englishman1 with his belief in         
progress1 with his instinctive          
preference for the cosmopolitan         
literature of the last century1 may     
think arts like these parochial1 but    
they are the arts we have begun the     
making of4  ,i will not1 however1 have  
all my readers with me when ,i say that 
no writer1 no artist1 even though he    
choose ,brian ,boroihme or ,s4 ,patrick 
for his subject1 should try to make his 
work popular4 ,once he has chosen a     

subject he must think of nothing but    
giving it such an expression as will    
please himself4 ,as ,walt ,whitman has  
written--    ',the oration is to the    
orator1 the acting is to the actor and  
actress1       not to the audience3     
,and no man understands any greatness or
 goodness but his own or the            
indication of his own4'  ,he must make  
his work a part of his own journey      
towards beauty and truth4 ,he must      
picture saint or hero1 or hillside1 as  
he sees them1 not as he is expected to  
see them1 and he must comfort himself1  
when others cry out against what he has 
seen1 by remembering that no two men are
 alike1 and that there is no 'excellent 
beauty without strangeness4' ,in this   
matter he must be without humility4 ,he 
may1 indeed1 doubt the reality of his   
vision if men do not quarrel with him as
 they did with the ,apostles1 for there 
is only one perfection and only one     
search for perfection1 and it sometimes 
has the form of the religious life and  

sometimes of the artistic life2 and ,i  
do not think these lives differ in their
 wages1 for ',the end of art is peace1' 
and out of the one as out of the other  
comes the cry3 ,sero te amavi1          
,pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova6   
,sero te amavi6  ,the ,catholic ,church 
is not the less the ,church of the      
people because the ,mass is spoken in   
,latin1 and art is not less the art of  
the people because it does not always   
speak in the language they are used to4 
,i once heard my friend ,mr4 ,ellis say1
 speaking at a celebration in honour of 
a writer whose fame had not come till   
long after his death1 ',it is not the   
business of a poet to make himself      
understood1 but it is the business of   
the people to understand him4 ,that they
 are at last compelled to do so is the  
proof of his authority4' ,and certainly 
if you take from art its martyrdom1 you 
will take from it its glory4 ,it might  
still reflect the passing modes of      
mankind1 but it would cease to reflect  

the face of ,god4  ,if our craftsmen    
were to choose their subjects under what
 we may call1 if we understand faith to 
mean that belief in a spiritual life    
which is not confined to one ,church1   
the persuasion of their faith and their 
country1 they would soon discover that  
although their choice seemed arbitrary  
at first1 it had obeyed what was deepest
 in them4 ,i could not now write of any 
other country but ,ireland1 for my style
 has been shaped by the subjects ,i have
 worked on1 but there was a time when my
 imagination seemed unwilling1 when ,i  
found myself writing of some ,irish     
event in words that would have better   
fitted some ,italian or ,eastern event1 
for my style had been shaped in that    
general stream of ,european literature  
which has come from so many watersheds1 
and it was slowly1 very slowly1 that ,i 
made a new style4 ,it was years before  
,i could rid myself of ,shelley's       
,italian light1 but now ,i think my     
style is myself4 ,i might have found    

more of ,ireland if ,i had written in   
,irish1 but ,i have found a little1 and 
,i have found all myself4 ,i am         
persuaded that if the ,irishmen who are 
painting conventional pictures or       
writing conventional books on alien     
subjects1 which have been worn away like
 pebbles on the shore1 would do the     
same1 they1 too1 might find themselves4 
,even the landscape-painter1 who paints 
a place that he loves1 and that no other
 man has painted1 soon discovers that no
 style learned in the studios is wholly 
fitted to his purpose4 ,and ,i cannot   
but believe that if our painters of     
,highland cattle and moss-covered barns 
were to care enough for their country to
 care for what makes it different from  
other countries1 they would discover1   
when struggling1 it may be1 to paint the
 exact grey of the bare ,burren ,hills1 
and of a sudden it may be1 a new style1 
their very selves4 ,and ,i admit1 though
 in this ,i am moved by some touch of   
fanaticism1 that even when ,i see an old

 subject written of or painted in a new 
way1 ,i am yet jealous for ,cuchulain1  
and for ,baile1 and ,aillinn1 and for   
those grey mountains that still are     
lacking their celebration4 ,i sometimes 
reproach myself because ,i cannot admire
 ,mr4 ,hughes' beautiful1 piteous       
,orpheus and ,eurydice with an          
unquestioning mind4 ,i say with my lips1
 ',the ,spirit made it1 for it is       
beautiful1 and the ,spirit bloweth where
 it listeth1' but ,i say in my heart1   
',aengus and ,etain would have served   
his turn2' but one cannot1 perhaps1 love
 or believe at all if one does not love 
or believe a little too much4  ,and ,i  
do not think with unbroken pleasure of  
our scholars who write about ,german    
writers or about periods of ,greek      
history4 ,i always remember that they   
could give us a number of little books  
which would tell1 each book for some one
 country1 or some one parish1 the       
verses1 or the stories1 or the events   
that would make every lake or mountain a

 man can see from his own door an       
excitement in his imagination4 ,i would 
have some of them leave that work of    
theirs which will never lack hands1 and 
begin to dig in ,ireland1 the garden of 
the future1 understanding that here in  
,ireland the spirit of man may be about 
to wed the soil of the world4  ,art and 
scholarship like these ,i have described
 would give ,ireland more than they     
received from her1 for they would make  
love of the unseen more unshakable1 more
 ready to plunge deep into the abyss1   
and they would make love of country more
 fruitful in the mind1 more a part of   
daily life4 ,one would know an ,irishman
 into whose life they had come--and in a
 few generations they would come into   
the life of all1 rich and poor--by      
something that set him apart among men4 
,he himself would understand that more  
was expected of him than of others      
because he had greater possessions4 ,the
 ,irish race would have become a chosen 
race1 one of the pillars that uphold the

 world4  #aija4     ,,the ,,galway      
,,plains   ,lady ,gregory has just given
 me her beautiful ,poets and ,dreamers1 
and it has brought to mind a day two or 
three years ago when ,i stood on the    
side of ,slieve ,echtge1 looking out    
over ,galway4 ,the ,burren ,hills were  
to my left1 and though ,i forget whether
 ,i could see the cairn over ,bald      
,conan of the ,fianna1 ,i could         
certainly see many places there that are
 in poems and stories4 ,in front of me1 
over many miles of level ,galway plains1
 ,i saw a low blue hill flooded with    
evening light4 ,i asked a countryman who
 was with me what hill that was1 and he 
told me it was ,cruachmaa of the ,sidhe4
 ,i had often heard of ,cruachmaa of the
 ,sidhe even as far north as ,sligo1 for
 the country people have told me a great
 many stories of the great host of the  
,sidhe who live there1 still fighting   
and holding festivals4  ,i asked the old
 countryman about it1 and he told me of 
strange women who had come from it1 and 

who would come into a house having the  
appearance of countrywomen1 but would   
know all that had happened in that      
house2 and how they would always pay    
back with increase1 though not by their 
own hands1 whatever was given to them4  
,and he had heard1 too1 of people who   
had been carried away into the hill1 and
 how one man went to look for his wife  
there1 and dug into the hill and all but
 got his wife again1 but at the very    
moment she was coming out to him1 the   
pick he was digging with struck her upon
 the head and killed her4 ,i asked him  
if he had himself seen any of its       
enchantments1 and he said1 ',sometimes  
when ,i look over to the hill1 ,i see a 
mist lying on the top of it1 that goes  
away after a while4'  ,a great part of  
the poems and stories in ,lady          
,gregory's book were made or gathered   
between ,burren and ,cruachmaa4 ,it was 
here that ,raftery1 the wandering       
country poet of ninety years ago1       
praised and blamed1 chanting fine       

verses1 and playing badly on his fiddle4
 ,it is here the ballads of meeting and 
parting have been sung1 and some whose  
lamentations for defeat are still       
remembered may have passed through this 
plain flying from the battle of         
,aughrim4  ',i will go up on the        
mountain alone2 and ,i will come hither 
from it again4 ,it is there ,i saw the  
camp of the ,gael1 the poor troop       
thinned1 not keeping with one another2  
,och ,ochone6' ,and here1 if one can    
believe many devout people whose stories
 are in the book1 ,christ has walked    
upon the roads1 bringing the needy to   
some warm fireside1 and sending one of  
,his ,saints to anoint the dying4  ,i do
 not think these country imaginations   
have changed much for centuries1 for    
they are still busy with those two      
themes of the ancient ,irish poets1 the 
sternness of battle and the sadness of  
parting and death4 ,the emotion that in 
other countries has made many love songs
 has here been given1 in a long wooing1 

to danger1 that ghostly bride4 ,it is   
not a difference in the substance of    
things that the lamentations that were  
sung after battles are now sung for men 
who have died upon the gallows4  ,the   
emotion has become not less1 but more   
noble1 by the change1 for the man who   
goes to his death with the thought--    
',it is with the people ,i was1   ,it is
 not with the law ,i was1'  has behind  
him generations of poetry and poetical  
life4  ,the poets of to-day speak with  
the voice of the unknown priest who     
wrote1 some two hundred years ago1 that 
,sorrowful ,lament for ,ireland1 ,lady  
,gregory has put into passionate and    
rhythmical prose--    ',i do not know of
 anything under the sky   ,that is      
friendly or favourable to the ,gael1    
,but only the sea that our need brings  
us to1   ,or the wind that blows to the 
harbour   ,the ship that is bearing us  
away from ,ireland2   ,and there is     
reason that these are reconciled with   
us1   ,for we increase the sea with our 

tears1   ,and the wandering wind with   
our sighs4'  ,there is still in truth   
upon these great level plains a people1 
a community bound together by           
imaginative possessions1 by stories and 
poems which have grown out of its own   
life1 and by a past of great passions   
which can still waken the heart to      
imaginative action4 ,one could still1 if
 one had the genius1 and had been born  
to ,irish1 write for these people plays 
and poems like those of ,greece4 ,does  
not the greatest poetry always require a
 people to listen to it8 ,england or any
 other country which takes its tune from
 the great cities and gets its taste    
from schools and not from old custom1   
may have a mob1 but it cannot have a    
people4 ,in ,england there are a few    
groups of men and women who have good   
taste1 whether in cookery or in books2  
and the great multitudes but copy them  
or their copiers4 ,the poet must always 
prefer the community where the perfected
 minds express the people1 to a         

community that is vainly seeking to copy
 the perfected minds4 ,to have even     
perfectly the thoughts that can be      
weighed1 the knowledge that can be got  
from books1 the precision that can be   
learned at school1 to belong to any     
aristocracy1 is to be a little pool that
 will soon dry up4 ,a people alone are a
 great river2 and that is why ,i am     
persuaded that where a people has died1 
a nation is about to die4  #aijc4       
,,emotion ,,of ,,multitude   ,i have    
been thinking a good deal about plays   
lately1 and ,i have been wondering why  
,i dislike the clear and logical        
construction which seems necessary if   
one is to succeed on the ,modern ,stage4
 ,it came into my head the other day    
that this construction1 which all the   
world has learnt from ,france1 has      
everything of high literature except the
 emotion of multitude4 ,the ,greek drama
 has got the emotion of multitude from  
its chorus1 which called up famous      
sorrows1 long-leaguered ,troy1          

much-enduring ,odysseus1 and all the    
gods and heroes to witness1 as it were1 
some well-ordered fable1 some action    
separated but for this from all but     
itself4 ,the ,french play delights in   
the well-ordered fable1 but by leaving  
out the chorus it has created an art    
where poetry and imagination1 always the
 children of far-off multitudinous      
things1 must of necessity grow less     
important than the mere will4 ,this is  
why1 ,i said to myself1 ,french dramatic
 poetry is so often a little rhetorical1
 for rhetoric is the will trying to do  
the work of the imagination4 ,the       
,shakespearean ,drama gets the emotion  
of multitude out of the sub-plot which  
copies the main plot1 much as a shadow  
upon the wall copies one's body in the  
firelight4 ,we think of ,king ,lear less
 as the history of one man and his      
sorrows than as the history of a whole  
evil time4 ,lear's shadow is in         
,gloster1 who also has ungrateful       
children1 and the mind goes on imagining

 other shadows1 shadow beyond shadow    
till it has pictured the world4 ,in     
,hamlet1 one hardly notices1 so subtly  
is the web woven1 that the murder of    
,hamlet's father and the sorrow of      
,hamlet are shadowed in the lives of    
,fortinbras and ,ophelia and ,laertes1  
whose fathers1 too1 have been killed4   
,it is so in all the plays1 or in all   
but all1 and very commonly the sub-plot 
is the main plot working itself out in  
more ordinary men and women1 and so     
doubly calling up before us the image of
 multitude4 ,ibsen and ,maeterlinck have
 on the other hand created a new form1  
for they get multitude from the ,wild   
,duck in the ,attic1 or from the ,crown 
at the bottom of the ,fountain1 vague   
symbols that set the mind wandering from
 idea to idea1 emotion to emotion4      
,indeed all the great ,masters have     
understood1 that there cannot be great  
art without the little limited life of  
the fable1 which is always the better   
the simpler it is1 and the rich1        

far-wandering1 many-imaged life of the  
half-seen world beyond it4 ,there are   
some who understand that the simple     
unmysterious things living as in a clear
 noon-light are of the nature of the    
sun1 and that vague many-imaged things  
have in them the strength of the moon4  
,did not the ,egyptian carve it on      
emerald that all living things have the 
sun for father and the moon for mother1 
and has it not been said that a man of  
genius takes the most after his mother8 
#aijc4     ,footnotes3  #a ',marianne's 
,dream' was certainly copied from a real
 dream of somebody's1 but like images   
come to the mystic in his waking state4 
#b ,this essay was first published in   
the ,united ,irishman4                  
,transcriber's ,note3  ,unmatched       
quotation marks and spelling variants   
are presented as in the original text4