The poet was born first and poetry came afterwards; poetry was born in the spirit of the poet. It is said in the East that as one can already see in the cradle what features the child will have later, so one can recognize a poet before he learns to speak. And poetry came before language, for it is the poetic spirit in man which made language. Thus the poet is not the son of language but its father; instead of only taking words he makes them. If it had not been for the poet, the language of all races would only have been shouting and howling. In all the different aspects of life we can recognize the signs of inspiration most fully in the poet; and there is no doubt great truth in the saying that the poet is a prophet, though it would be still better to say that the prophet is a poet.