But he has left out the pollard
willows, says another censor, and the lines of pollard willow are the
prominent feature in the valley of the Colne, even more so than the
"hedgerow elms." Does the line "Walk the studious cloister's pale,"
_mean_ St. Paul's or Westminster Abbey? When these things can continue
to be asked, it is hardly superfluous to continue to repeat, that
truth of fact and poetical truth are two different things. Milton's
attitude towards nature is not that of a "descriptive poet", if indeed
the phrase be not a self-contradiction.
In Milton, nature is not put forward as the poet's theme. His theme
is man, in the two contrasted moods of joyous emotion, or grave
reflection. The shifting scenery ministers to the varying mood.
Thomson, in the _Seasons_ (1726), sets himself to render natural
phenomena as they truly are. He has left us a vivid presentation in
gorgeous language of the naturalistic calendar of the changing year.
Milton, in these two idylls, has recorded a day of twenty-four
hours. But he has not registered the phenomena; he places us at the
standpoint of the man before whom they deploy.
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