"[110]
Or in a higher strain--
"Who made the heart, 'tis He alone
Decidedly can try us;
He knows each chord, its various tone;
Each spring, its various bias.
Then at the balance let's be mute,
We never can adjust it;
What's _done_ we partly may compute,
But know not what's resisted."[111]
Or in a better strain yet, a strain, his admirers will say,
unsurpassable--
"To make a happy fire-side clime
To weans and wife,
That's the true pathos and sublime
Of human life."[112]
There is criticism of life for you, the admirers of Burns will say to
us; there is the application of ideas to life! There is, undoubtedly.
The doctrine of the last-quoted lines coincides almost exactly with what
was the aim and end, Xenophon tells us, of all the teaching of Socrates.
And the application is a powerful one; made by a man of vigorous
understanding, and (need I say?) a master of language.
But for supreme poetical success more is required than the powerful
application of ideas to life; it must be an application under the
conditions fixed by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty.
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