likeness, and attraction--what if the law of bodies govern souls
also, and the geometer's compasses measure more than it has entered
into his heart to conceive? Is the moon a name only for a certain
tonnage of dead matter, and is the law of passion parochial while
the law of gravitation is universal? Mysticism will observe no
such partial boundaries.


O more than Moon!
Draw not up seas to drown me in thy sphere,
Weep me not dead in thine arms, but forbear
To teach the sea what it may do too soon.


The secret of these sublime intuitions, undivined by many of the
greatest poets, has been left to the keeping of transcendental
religion and the Catholic Church.

Figure and ornament, therefore, are not interchangeable terms; the
loftiest figurative style most conforms to the precepts of gravity
and chastity. None the less there is a decorative use of figure,
whereby a theme is enriched with imaginations and memories that are
foreign to the main purpose. Under this head may be classed most
of those allusions to the world's literature, especially to
classical and Scriptural lore, which have played so considerable,
yet on the whole so idle, a part in modern poetry. It is here that
an inordinate love of decoration finds its opportunity and its
snare. To keep the most elaborate comparison in harmony with its
occasion, so that when it is completed it shall fall back easily
into the emotional key of the narrative, has been the study of the