O poet! a new nobility is conferred in groves and
pastures, and not in castles or by the sword-blade
any longer. The conditions are hard, but equal.
Thou shalt leave the world, and know the muse only.
Thou shalt not know any longer the times, customs,
graces, politics, or opinions of men, but shalt take
all from the muse. For the time of towns is tolled
from the world by funereal chimes, but in nature the
universal hours are counted by succeeding tribes of
animals and plants, and by growth of joy on joy. God
wills also that thou abdicate a manifold and duplex
life, and that thou be content that others speak for
thee. Others shall be thy gentlemen and shall
represent all courtesy and worldly life for thee;
others shall do the great and resounding actions also.
Thou shalt lie close hid with nature, and canst not
be afforded to the Capitol or the Exchange. The world
is full of renunciations and apprenticeships, and this
is thine: thou must pass for a fool and a churl for a
long season. This is the screen and sheath in which
Pan has protected his well-beloved flower, and thou
shalt be known only to thine own, and they shall
console thee with tenderest love. And thou shalt not
be able to rehearse the names of thy friends in thy
verse, for an old shame before the holy ideal. And
this is the reward; that the ideal shall be real to
thee, and the impressions of the actual world shall
fall like summer rain, copious, but not troublesome,
to thy invulnerable essence. Thou shalt have the whole
land for thy park and manor, the sea for thy bath and