a deeper meaning into the events it records?" But it is difficult to
frame formal questions the answers to which will show how a poem
quickens life. The influence of a poem is so much a matter of
temperament and of emotion, both of the author and of the reader, that
one has to feel its power rather than to work it out logically. Poetry
passes beyond prose in that it quickens life by moving us to feel its
nobler emotions. It will teach its own lesson to the appreciative
reader, and the student who gets fully into sympathy with a great poem
will have his whole life made brighter. Class work, done
sympathetically and sincerely, will aid in finding the truest
interpretations. Yet studies teach not their own use. The higher
blessings come to us unbidden if we as little children hope for them.
We shall find the highest uses of poetry in remembering always that it
may at its best come to us as an


"Angel of light
Singing to welcome the pilgrims of the night."


[Signature: Francis Hovey Stoddard]




TABLE OF CONTENTS.


INTRODUCTORY ESSAY:
"THE STUDY OF POETRY."