True poets, like the great physicians, minister to life by awakening faith. The singers of New England have made us feel that the Divine Presence stands behind the darkest shadow, that the feeble hands groping blindly in the darkness will touch God's strengthening right hand. Amid the snows of his Northland, Whittier wrote:—
"I know not where his islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond his love and care."
Lanier calls from the southern marshes, fringed with the live oaks "and woven shades of the vine":—
"I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies
In the freedom that fills all the space 'twixt the marsh and the skies:
By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends in the sod
I will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of God."
The impressive moral lesson taught by American literature is a presence not to be put by. Lowell's utterance is typical of our greatest authors:—
"Not failure, but low aim, is crime."
Hawthorne wrote his great masterpiece to express this central truth:—
"To the untrue man, the whole universe is false,—it is impalpable,—
it shrinks to nothing within his grasp."
Finally, American literature has striven to impress the truth voiced in these lines:—
"As children of the Infinite Soul
Our Birthright is the boundless whole….