things can be supposed to make upon the mind, in the language of common
conversation. Let who will strip nature of the colours and the shapes of
fancy, the poet is not bound to do so; the impressions of common sense
and strong imagination, that is, of passion and indifference, cannot be
the same, and they must have a separate language to do justice to
either. Objects must strike differently upon the mind, independently of
what they are in themselves, as long as we have a different interest in
them, as we see them in a different point of view, nearer or at a
greater distance (morally or physically speaking) from novelty, from old
acquaintance, from our ignorance of them, from our fear of their
consequences, from contrast, from unexpected likeness. We can no more
take away the faculty of the imagination, than we can see all objects
without light or shade. Some things must dazzle us by their
preternatural light; others must hold us in suspense, and tempt our
curiosity to explore their obscurity. Those who would dispel these
various illusions, to give us their drab-coloured creation in their
stead, are not very wise. Let the naturalist, if he will, catch the
glow-worm, carry it home with him in a box, and find it next morning
nothing but a little grey worm; let the poet or the lover of poetry
visit it at evening, when beneath the scented hawthorn and the crescent
moon it has built itself a palace of emerald light. This is also one
part of nature, one appearance which the glow-worm presents, and that
not the least interesting; so poetry is one part of the history of the
human mind, though it is neither science nor philosophy. It cannot be
concealed, however, that the progress of knowledge and refinement has a
tendency to circumscribe the limits of the imagination, and to clip the
wings of poetry. The province of the imagination is principally
visionary, the unknown and undefined: the understanding restores things
to their natural boundaries, and strips them of their fanciful
pretensions. Hence the history of religious and poetical enthusiasm is