The most unfailing herald, companion, and follower of the awakening of a great people to work a beneficial change in opinion or institution, is poetry. At such periods there is an accumulation of the power of communicating and receiving intense and impassioned conceptions respecting man and nature. The person in whom this power resides, may often, as far as regards many portions of their nature, have little apparent correspondence with that spirit of good of which they are the ministers. But even whilst they deny and abjure, they are yet compelled to serve, that power which is seated on the throne of their own soul. It is impossible to read the compositions of the most celebrated writers of the present day without being startled with the electric life which burns within their words. They measure the circumference and sound the depths of human nature with a comprehensive and all-penetrating spirit, and they are themselves perhaps the most sincerely astonished at its manifestations; for it is less their spirit than the spirit of the age. Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

Percy Byshe Shelley


Portrait of Shelley, by Alfred Clint (1829
Definitions for herald, noun
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history – in the Middle Ages, a kind of messenger for a member of the nobility
⇄ héraut ▫ anciennement messager ▫ chevaucheur
an announcer in a public meeting or gathering — the role of the herald in tribal meetings
⇄ rare annonceur
a strong indication of a phenomenon or tendency — The country’s revolution is a herald of regional change.
⇄ héraut · messager · signe annonciateur · signe avant-coureur […]
the herald: a kind of moth (Scolopteryx libatrix)
⇄ découpure
Definition of hierophant, noun
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someone religious, usually a priest, who is an interpreter of sacred mysteries and arcane or esoteric principles
⇄ hiérophante
Français ci-bas
Le plus infaillible héraut, compagnon, partisan de l'éveil d'un grand peuple à l'accomplissement d'un changement bénéfique dans l'opinion ou les institutions, c'est la poésie. A de telles époques s'accumule le pouvoir de donner et de recevoir des conceptions intenses et exaltées touchant l'homme et la nature(...)Il est impossible de lire les oeuvres des écrivains les plus célèbres d'aujourd'hui sans être saisi par la vie électrique qui crépite dans leurs mots. Ils mesurent la circonférence, et sondent la profondeur de la nature humaine de leur esprit compréhensif et pénétrant, et peut-être sont-ils eux-mêmes les plus sincèrement surpris par ses manifestations; car c'est moins leur esprit que l'esprit de leur siècle. Les poètes sont les hiérophantes d'une inspiration imprévue; les miroirs des ombres gigantesques que l'avenir projette sur le présent; les mots qui expriment ce qu'ils ne comprennent pas; les trompettes qui sonnent la bataille et ne sentent pas ce qu'elles inspirent; l'influence qui n'est pas mue mais qui meut. Les poètes sont les législateurs non reconnus du monde.

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