drowned; we cannot save him." "Oh, is that all?" replied Mr. Kipling; "he won't let go."
Be men of to-day; the past is useful to make us wise in the present. The poet Tennyson had a wonderful influence in his generation. His influence is due not alone to his rich thought and poetic skill; he had the broad liberal view that could adapt itself to the changing world of science, philosophy, and religion, and he thus opened up the avenues of approach to all classes of thinkers. He was a man with an evolving ideal, a free, sane, healthy mind.
Poetry is not a thing of the past; it has not yet become familiar with its new themes. Kipling can sing the "Song of Steam" and write the romance of the "Day's Work"—can find poetry in a locomotive, a bridge, a ship or an engine. Kipling is right when he makes McAndrew, the hard-headed engineer of an ocean liner, see in the vast motor mechanism an "orchestra sublime," "singing like the morning stars," and proclaiming: "Not unto us the praise, or man." "From coupler-flange to spindle-guide I see Thy Hand, O God"—and this vision is always the ultimate ground of poetry. On a palace steamer between New York and the New England coast I once heard an uncultured workman exclaim: "When I watch this mighty engine, with its majestic, powerful movement, I feel that there is a God." At first thought the sentiment was humorously illogical, but his instinct was right. The works of nature and the works of man alike suggest a divine origin—God working in nature and working through man.
