a fortune in the shortest possible space of time, be the highest aim of our existence, then the less we have to do with poetry the better. But may we not be mistaken in the ideas we habitually attach to the word utility? There is a utility of material, and another of immaterial things. There is a utility in calculating our bodily wants, and our resources, and in regulating our personal efforts in proportion to both; but there is a higher utility in sometimes setting the mind free, like a bird that has been caged, to spread its wings, and soar into the ethereal world. There is a higher utility in sometimes pausing to feel the power which is in the immortal spirit to search out the principle of beauty, whether it bursts upon us with the dawn of rosy morning, or walks at gorgeous noon across the hills and valleys, or lies at evening's dewy close, enshrined within a folded flower.
It is good, and therefore it must be useful, to see and to feel that the all-wise Creator has set the stamp of degradation only upon those things which perish in the using; but that all those which enlarge and elevate the soul, all which afford us the highest and purest enjoyment, from the loftiest range of sublimity, to the softest emotions of tenderness and love, are, and must be, immortal. Yes, the mountains may be overthrown, and the heavens themselves may melt away, but all the ideas with which they inspired us—their vastness and their grandeur, will remain. Every flower might fade from the garden of earth, but would beauty, as an essence, therefore cease to exist? Even love might fail us here. Alas! how often does it fail us at our utmost need! But the principle of love is the same; and there is no human heart so callous as not to respond to the language of the poet, when he says—
"They sin who tell us love can die |
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