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our life depends on so little! Even thus may the verse of a poet, in the midst of the humble incidents of ordinary days, suddenly reveal to us something that is stupendous. No solemn word has been pronounced, and we feel that nothing has been called forth; and yet, why has an ineffable face beckoned to us from behind an old man's tears, why does a vast night, starred with angels, extend over the smile of a child, and why, around a yes or no, murmured by a soul that sings and busies itself with other matters, do we suddenly hold our breath for an instant and say to ourselves, 'Here is the house of God, and this one of the approaches to heaven'?

It is because these poets have been more heedful than we to the 'never-ending shadow.' . . . That is the essence of supreme poetry, that, and that alone, and its sole aim is to keep open 'the great road that leads from the seen to the unseen.' But