to some sterner and more overwhelming conception of the sum of things.
"Lord, what is man that Thou art mindful of him?" is the cry of
Hebrew piety as well as of modern science; and the "majestas cognita
rerum,"--the recognized majesty of the universe--teaches Lucretius
only the indifference of gods and the misery of men.

But in a well-known passage, in which Lucretius is honoured as he
deserves, we find nevertheless a different view hinted, with an
impressiveness which it had hardly acquired till then. We find
Virgil implying that scientific knowledge of Nature may not be the
only way of arriving at the truth about her; that her loveliness is
also a revelation, and that the soul which is in unison with her is
justified by its own peace. This is the very substance of _The
Poet's Epitaph_ also; of the poem in which Wordsworth at the
beginning of his career describes himself as he continued till its
close,--the poet who "murmurs near the running brooks a music
sweeter than their own,"--who scorns the man of science "who would
peep and botanize upon his mother's grave."

The outward shows of sky and earth,
Of hill and valley, he has viewed;
And impulses of deeper birth
Have come to him in solitude.

In common things that round us lie
Some random truths he can impart,--
The harvest of a quiet eye
That broods and sleeps on his own heart.

But he is weak, both man and boy,