once more conceive as their ideal, not a singer aflame with youth and
passion, but a poet of rich experience and profound reflection,

White-bearded and with eyes that look afar
From their still region of perpetual snow,
Beyond the little smokes and stirs of men.
[Footnote: James Russell Lowell, _Thorwald's Lay_.]




CHAPTER III.

THE POET AS LOVER


Do the _Phaedrus_ and the _Symposium_ leave anything to be said on the
relationship of love and poetry? In the last analysis, probably not. The
poet, however, is not one to keep silence because of a dearth of new
philosophical conceptions. As he discovers, with ever fresh wonder, the
power of love as muse, each new poet, in turn, is wont to pour his
gratitude for his inspiration into song, undeterred by the fact that
love has received many encomiums before.

It is not strange that this hymn should be broken by rude taunts on the
part of the uninitiated.

Saynt Idiote, Lord of these foles alle,

Chaucer's Troilus called Love, long ago, and the general public has been