Pope's polished satiric and didactic
verse, neglecting the primrose by the river's brim, lacking deep feeling,
high ideals, and heaven-climbing imagination, had long been the model that
inspired cold intellectual poetry. In the latter part of the century,
romantic feeling and imagination won their battle and came into their own
heritage in literature. ROBERT BURNS (1759-1796) wrote poetry that touched
the heart. A classicist like Dr. Johnson preferred the town to the most
beautiful country scenes, but WILLIAM COWPER (1731-1800) says:--
"God made the country, and man made the town."
Romantic poetry culminated in the work of WILLIAM WORDSWORTH and SAMUEL
TAYLOR COLERIDGE, whose _Lyrical Ballads_ (1798) included the wonderful
romantic poem of _The Ancient Mariner_, and poems by Wordsworth, which
brought to thousands of human souls a new sense of companionship with
nature, a new feeling
"... that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes,"
and that all nature is anxious to share its joy with man and to introduce
him to a new world. The American poets of this age, save Freneau in a few
short lyrics, felt but little of this great impulse; but in the next period
we shall see that William Cullen Bryant heard the call and sang:--
"Scarce less the cleft-born wild-flower seems to enjoy
Existence than the winged plunderer
That sucks its sweets.
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