As a participant and dispenser of divine influence, he
shows himself among human affairs a true connecting medium and
visible messenger between heaven and earth, a man, therefore,
not only permitted to enter the sphere of poetry, but to dwell
in the purest centre thereof, perhaps the most inspired of all
teachers since the Apostles. Unhappily or happily, Luther's
poetic feeling did not so much learn to express itself in fit
words, that take captive every ear, as in fit actions,
wherein, truly under still more impressive manifestations, the
spirit of spheral melody resides and still audibly addresses
us. In his written poems, we find little save that strength of
on 'whose words,' it has been said, 'were half-battles'3-
little of that still harmony and blending softness of union
which is the last perfection of strength - less of it than even
his conduct manifested. With words he had not learned to make
music - it was by deeds of love or heroic valor that he spoke
freely. Nevertheless, though in imperfect articulation, the
same voice, if we listen well, is to be heard also in his
writings, in his poems. The one entitled _Ein' Feste Burg_,
universally regarded as the best, jars upon our ears; yet
there is something in it like the sound of Alpine avalanches,
or the first murmur of earthquakes, in the very vastness of
which dissonance a higher unison is revealed to us.
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