And hath no tears for his mortality.”
It seems as though she marched on, having a purpose of her own inaccessible to man; she keeps her own secret, and drops no hint to him. This side of things, whether philosophically or imaginatively regarded, seems to justify the saying that “the visible world still remains without its divine interpretation.” And though inexplicable, perhaps for its very inexplicability, this mysterious silence, this inexorable deafness, this inhuman indifference of Nature, has oppressed the imagination of some of the greatest poets with a vague but sublime awe. The sense of it lay heavy on Lucretius and Shelley, sometimes on Wordsworth, and drew out of their souls some of the profoundest music. At the present time, perhaps from the increased scientific knowledge of Nature’s processes, this contrast between the warm and tender human heart, and the cold and impassive, almost relentless, elements, more than ever before dominates the imaginations of men.
VI.
A sixth mode of poetically treating Nature is that which we meet with in purely descriptive poetry. In Hesiod, in Theocritus, in the Georgics of Virgil, among the ancients, we have examples of pure description interwoven in didactic and idyllic poetry; but it is in modern times that this kind of poetry has chiefly asserted itself. The most striking example of it is Thomson’s “Seasons.” There we find that man is quite subordinate, and only comes in to set off Nature and its appearances, which form the main object of the poem. As it may seem to be one of the simplest ways of treating Nature, merely to describe it,—to picture what the eye sees and the ear hears,—faithfully to reproduce the forms and colors of things, the movements and the sounds which pervade them—perhaps some may think it should have been the earliest method. But as a fact, this kind of poetry, which seems so simple, is the product only of a late age. Early poets hardly ever handle Nature except to interweave it with human action and emotion, and as set-off against the life of man. To regard it by itself, and as existing apart from man, is the mental attitude of a late and cultivated time, even though the descriptions may seem to be plain and unadorned.
Since writing these sentences, I have read in Mr. Stopford Brooke’s admirable “English Literature Primer” a passage in which he attributes the earliest efforts at poetry of natural description to Scotch poets, and among these especially to Gawain Douglas, early in the sixteenth century; and then he, in another place, points out how, when this kind of poetry came prominently forward in more modern times, it was a Scottish poet who led the way in it. This is what he says:—
“Natural scenery had been hitherto only used as a background to the picture of human life. It now (that is, in the first thirty years of the eighteenth century) began to take a much larger place in poetry, and, after a time, grew to occupy a distinct place of its own apart from man. The best natural description we have before the time of Pope is that of two Puritans, Marvell and Milton. But the first poem devoted to natural description appeared while Pope was yet alive, in the very midst of a vigorous town poetry. It was the “Seasons,” 1726-30; and it is curious, remembering what I have said about the peculiar turn of the Scotch for natural description, that it was the work of James Thomson, a Scotchman. He described the scenery and country-life of Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. He wrote with his eye upon their scenery, and, even when he wrote of it in his room, it was with “a recollected love.” The descriptions were too much like catalogues, the very fault of the previous Scotch poets; and his style was always heavy, and often cold, but he was the first poet who led the English people into that new world of nature in poetry, which has moved and enchanted us in the works of Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and Tennyson, but which was entirely impossible for Pope to understand. The impulse Thomson gave was soon followed.”
In our own day such poetic descriptions of Nature have burst the bonds of metre altogether, and filled many a splendid page of poetic or imaginative prose. Many instances of this will occur to every one. Preëminent among these are Mr. Ruskin’s elaborate word-pictures of natural scenery.
But of all poetic description of Nature, it may be said that if it is to reach any high level it cannot proceed calmly and unexcitedly after the manner of an inventory. No eye can see deeply into the meaning of Nature unless it has also looked as deeply into the recesses of the human heart, and felt the full gravity of man’s life and destiny. It is only when seen over against these that Nature renders back her profounder tones.