The loftiest
strains of the muse are, for the most part, sublimely plaintive,
and not a carol as free as nature's. The content which the sun
shines to celebrate from morning to evening, is unsung. The muse
solaces herself, and is not ravished but consoled. There is a
catastrophe implied, and a tragic element in all our verse, and
less of the lark and morning dews, than of the nightingale and
evening shades. But in Homer and Chaucer there is more of the
innocence and serenity of youth than in the more modern and moral
poets. The Iliad is not Sabbath but morning reading, and men
cling to this old song, because they still have moments of
unbaptized and uncommitted life, which give them an appetite for
more. To the innocent there are neither cherubim nor angels. At
rare intervals we rise above the necessity of virtue into an
unchangeable morning light, in which we have only to live right
on and breathe the ambrosial air. The Iliad represents no creed
nor opinion, and we read it with a rare sense of freedom and
irresponsibility, as if we trod on native ground, and were
autochthones of the soil.
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