SB 
 
 517 
 
 EMERSON 
 AS A POET 
 

 

 ARTOTYPE, E. BltRSIADT, N. Y. 
 
EMERSON AS A POET 
 
 BY 
 
 JOEL BENTON 
 
 RlEN DE CE QUI NE TRANSPORTE PAS N EST POESIE. 
 LA LYRE EST UN INSTRUMENT AILE. Joubert. 
 
 NEW-YORK 
 M. L. HOLBROOK & CO. 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1883, BY JOEL BENTON. 
 
SBemt be3 IDi^ter* SWityte gefjt, 
 alte fte ntc^t ein! 
 Denn tt>er einmal un$ serftefjt, 
 2Birb un3 audj serjeityn. 
 
 The words of a good poet, even when we do not 
 apprehend their full meaning, pour a stream of 
 sweet nectar upon the soul. 
 
 From the Hindu of the Sarngadhara Paddhati. 
 
 There is, indeed, a certain low and moderate sort 
 of poetry that a man may well enough judge by 
 certain rules of art; but the true, supreme, and 
 divine Poesy is above all the rules of reason. Who 
 ever discovers the beauty of it, with the most 
 assured and most steady sight, sees no more than 
 the quick reflection of a flash of lightning. This is 
 a sort of poetry that does not exercise, but ravishes 
 and overwhelms our judgment. 
 
 Montaigne. 
 
 305571 
 
SDefcication, 
 
 TO 
 
 WALTER H. POMEROY, 
 
 WHOSE EARLY AND 
 CONSTANT APPRECIATION OF 
 EMERSON AND OF THE HIGHEST 
 MINDS MAKES THIS ASSOCIATION APT, EVEN 
 IF HALF A LIFE-TIME OF GENEROUS FRIEND 
 SHIP WERE NOT ALSO IN THE SCALE, I 
 DEDICATE, WITH ESPECIAL PLEAS 
 URE, THIS LITTLE 
 VOLUME. 
 
 J. B. 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 TT seems necessary to say that this essay 
 was written over a year and a half 
 ago, and is given here substantially in the 
 form that it then had. No essential change 
 has been made to accommodate it to Mr. 
 Emerson s death, or to do justice to the mul 
 titude of sayings that this event elicited. If 
 but little has been added, a few points have 
 been slightly expanded while preparing it 
 for the press. The portion read at Concord, 
 on the day set apart to Emerson by the 
 " School of Philosophy" was a fragment, 
 only a brief synopsis of which was furnished 
 for the book representing the lectures of that 
 body. 
 
8 
 
 For the privilege of copying so liberally 
 from Mr. Emerson s poems, I am indebted 
 to the courtesy of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin 
 6r> Co.; and to Mr. C. If. Brainard, of 
 Washington, for the right to reduce for an 
 appropriate frontispiece the admirable litho 
 graph of Emerson, which had its origin in 
 a photograph owned by Theodore Parker, 
 and which was Mr. Parker s favorite picture 
 of this author. To many others, also, no 
 other portrait of Emerson recalls him so per 
 fectly in his best attittide, as he was in his 
 prime. 
 
 I am sure, whatever judgment this essay 
 may provoke, that the addition of Mr. Ken 
 nedy 1 s Concordance to Mr. Emersoris poetry, 
 which he has kindly permitted me to make, 
 will prove a welcome feature in this offering. 
 
 J. B. 
 
 Amenia, N. K, Oct. f, 1882. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PORTRAIT 
 
 DEDICATION 5 
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 7 
 
 EMERSON AS A POET 1 1 
 
 APPENDIX 89 
 
 CONCORDANCE TO EMERSON S POETRY 91 
 
 EMERSON AS A MAGAZINE TOPIC 131 
 
MR. EMERSON AS A POET. 
 
 I hold it of little matter 
 
 Whether your jewel be of pure water, 
 
 A rose diamond or a white, 
 
 But whether it dazzle me with light. 
 
 EMERSON. 
 
 Charm is the glory which makes 
 Song of the poet divine. 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 
 
 says, in his "Imagi 
 nary Conversations," that " a 
 rib of Shakespeare would have 
 made Milton the same portion of Milton, 
 all poets born ever since." Something 
 of this largeness and intensity this su 
 premacy of genius belongs to Emerson. 
 
12 
 
 So dense and pervading is his peculiar 
 and individual force, it might, if properly 
 distributed, be made to equip and light a 
 literary constellation. We must go back 
 to Shakespeare and Milton, among English 
 names, to find an equally enormous endow 
 ment. If it does not stream in versatility, 
 it towers in commanding altitude.* Among 
 his contemporaries we may name, to be sure, 
 notable men of a more composite order 
 but no personality at once so compact, so 
 essence-like, so opulent, so strong. While 
 his power is well authenticated in one 
 direction by all who are competent to 
 speak of it, it is curious, and not quite 
 explicable, that the current literary criti 
 cism conspires to go so completely around 
 his poetry. It leaves it, indeed, in almost 
 
 * Dr. Bartol says : " If Shakespeare or Goethe be 
 the Mont Blanc, Emerson is a neighboring Aiguille 
 of lesser breadth, but well-nigh equal height." 
 
solitary neglect surrounds it as if, among 
 the high products of literary expression 
 in this century, it alone should be reserved 
 as an island for silence. Let us admit at 
 the outset, if you will, that the fortitude 
 of his strain as Matthew Arnold says of 
 the verses of Epictetus "is for the strong, 
 for the few; even for them the spiritual 
 atmosphere with which it surrounds them 
 is bleak and gray" and that 
 
 "The solemn peaks but to the stars are known, 
 But to the stars and the cold lunar beams; 
 Alone the sun arises, and alone 
 
 Spring the great streams." 
 
 But the best minds concede the bril 
 liancy of Emerson s thought, and find 
 delight in its acuteness and depth. They 
 accept his power in prose, and this prose, 
 unmatchable and radiant, is itself better 
 poetry than the verses of many reputable 
 singers. They do not refuse to rate him 
 
4 
 
 as a philosopher, and almost as a prophet ; 
 but, so far as concerns any adequate state 
 ment, they overlook and pass by his over 
 whelming preponderance as a poet. There 
 are those who think Carlyle s often ex 
 pressed and notorious dislike of modern 
 verse-making (does this spring from his 
 own failure to succeed in it ?), resulting in 
 certain proffered advice, and joined with 
 Emerson s almost maiden modesty as an 
 aspirant, led the latter some time since 
 into the habit * of disparaging his own great 
 gift. So that we have the singular phe 
 nomenon of the author of the most pure, 
 aerial and divinely souled poetry since 
 Shakespeare s music became measured and 
 still, and the literary world together, fall- 
 
 * An anecdote, giving some pleasant badinage 
 between Emerson and an interviewer on this 
 point, is gracefully told by a writer in Scribner s 
 Monthly for February, 1880. 
 
ing into a condition of mind which, except 
 casually and fragmentarily, ignores its va 
 lidity and almost disputes its existence. 
 But can it be believed that Shakespeare 
 inwardly did not know he was Shakes 
 peare, or that Emerson was really in 
 doubt about his own marvelous vision 
 and melody ? 
 
 I purpose, in a brief paper, not by any 
 means to make up the deficiency I lament, 
 but to offer a few cursory suggestions which 
 may prompt others who have the truth in 
 view, and the requisite fitness, to show the 
 courage of their convictions on this subject. 
 
 One need not go far, of course, to see 
 why Emerson s poetry is not accepted and 
 popular in the way that Longfellow s or 
 
 , ^n i i - 
 
 Whittier s is ; for he does not aim to medi 
 ate to the average mind, and will not ad 
 dress the careless and irresolute thought. 
 He shuns the dramatic form, omits the 
 
i6 
 
 shining thread of narrative, and cannot 
 stoop to tickle an ephemeral and idle 
 fancy. These things are well to do, and 
 honorable in their sphere ; but, apart from, 
 and above them, there should be ample 
 room to furnish him a well-recognized seat 
 in the modern Parnassus. May he not 
 at least be placed along with Browning, 
 even if the latter does transform the world 
 into a stage and play-house ? If you call 
 his style obscure, how will you characterize 
 Browning s ? I will not say, take for an 
 example this last writer s " Bordello," which 
 was recalled and rewritten to make it 
 apprehensible ; but take " The Ring and 
 the Book" take the most famous poems, 
 and the most of the verse he has written, 
 extended or brief (excepting " Evelyn 
 Hope " and " The Pied Piper of Hame- 
 lin "), and what does the average reader 
 make of them ? But Browning, in spite 
 
of thick obscurity, and what seems latterly 
 like intolerable affectation, enters into large 
 account with all writers who attempt to 
 deal with English poetry; he is marked 
 and measured, a society is formed around 
 his name, and he has the unmistakable 
 distinction of having caused reams of 
 paper to be written over with most careful 
 praise or the most complimentary fault 
 finding. Who has yet sounded the true 
 note in respect to Emerson s poems ? 
 Who, in fact, has considered them with 
 jmyjthoughtful or elaborate attention ? 
 Casual notice, of course, they have re 
 ceived; but, in the main, the critics, in 
 consideration of his permitted prose and 
 unimpeachable moral flavor, have simply 
 condescended, in silence, to forgive him 
 for being a poet. 
 
 Very likely Emerson can say, as Brown 
 ing is lately attributed with saying to a 
 
i8 
 
 friend : " I can have little doubt that my 
 writing has been in the main too hard for 
 many I should have been pleased to com 
 municate with; but I never designedly 
 tried to puzzle people, as some of my 
 critics have supposed. On the other hand, 
 I never pretended to offer such literature 
 as should be a substitute for a cigar or a 
 game of dominoes to an idle man." 
 
 I must make a memorandum here in 
 reference to this bugbear of obscurity. We 
 do not skip Shakespeare or Dante because 
 we must labor with them. It is con 
 ceded that neither Emerson nor Browning 
 can be called pellucid writers. What they 
 bring requires a faculty for resolving, not 
 wholly dissimilar to that which inheres in 
 the contribution. Is it unfair that the 
 reader should be asked to possess a little 
 spark of the fire that went with so much 
 force to inflame the page? 
 
But there is a difference in opacities. 
 Emerson s dimness seems more directly a 
 necessary incident, and less an invention. 
 It is not so willful-appearing as the 
 English poet s. If he exploits new idioms 
 in his speech he is not so full of inces 
 sant syntactical contractions the verb 
 and its nominative case and all the parts 
 of speech scintillating and careering about 
 until their condition becomes as doubtful 
 as was Douglas Jerrold s when, accosting 
 "Sordello," he felt obliged to ask, "Am 
 I drunk, or am I sober?" Nor is there 
 such a conglomeration of broken sentences 
 gluing together fragments of thought which 
 he begins to utter, and then drops, as 
 Browning uses leaving you to pursue your 
 way out of darkness into light as best you 
 may. 
 
 / Emerson s opacity relates more logically 
 and reasonably to the magnitude of his 
 
20 
 
 thought. Apart from it all, however, he 
 has, as I shall show, abundant fluid beauty, 
 which ought to be familiar and accessible 
 to any reader to whom the best poetry has 
 anything to offer. He uses " thunder- 
 words," as the Germans say, which fill 
 with lightning all the circuits of the sky; 
 but they are there for a purpose. Oftener 
 than anything, I suspect, which troubles the 
 average mind that approaches this incom 
 parably fine body of verse, is its unremitting, 
 tremendous condensation of thought. If 
 Emerson were to touch a trifle, the blow 
 would be delivered with the weight of a 
 trip-hammer; yet, as that instrument is 
 sometimes successfully used to crack a wal 
 nut, so his reserve force, always apparent 
 and dominant, gives weight to the most airy 
 expression. He does not certainly write 
 vers de societe, as Locker and Dobson do; 
 but in his poem of "The Romany Girl" 
 
21 
 
 we can see how the lighter theme fares in 
 his hands. It is the gypsy who speaks and 
 says: 
 
 The sun goes down and with him takes 
 
 The coarseness of my poor attire ; 
 
 The fair moon mounts, and ay the flame 
 
 Of gypsy beauty blazes higher. 
 
 Pale Northern Girls! you scorn our race; 
 You captives of your air-tight halls, 
 Wear out indoors your sickly days, 
 But leave us the horizon walls. 
 ****** 
 Go, keep your cheek s rose from the rain, 
 For teeth and hair with shopmen deal: 
 My swarthy tint is in the grain 
 The rocks and forests know it real. 
 
 The wild air bloweth in our lungs, 
 The keen stars twinkle in our eyes, 
 The birds gave us our wily tongues, 
 The panther in our dances flies. 
 
 How well thought out this imagery is. 
 The lines, hard and tensely drawn, fall 
 upon the air with tingling, metallic force. 
 Emerson cannot abide the frail texture 
 
22 
 
 so fashionable in a great deal of modern 
 verse, and insists that a spinal system is 
 preferable to mere perfumery, color, and 
 technical correctness. In another brief 
 poem, titled " The Amulet," which is given 
 without reduction below, see with what 
 firmness and force he imprints the intense 
 and scalding thought of the lover, a little 
 while separated fram the object of. his 
 love, and (so it ever is) of his agonizing 
 doubt : 
 
 Your picture smiles as first it smiled; 
 
 The ring you gave is still the same; 
 Your letter tells, O changing child ! 
 
 No tidings since it came. 
 
 Give me an amulet 
 
 That keeps intelligence with you, 
 Red when you love, and rosier red, 
 
 And when you love not, pale and blue. 
 
 Alas! that neither bonds nor vows 
 
 Can certify possession; 
 Torments me still the fear that love 
 
 Died in its last expression. 
 
 I 
 
23 
 
 A purely academic writer, or a feebler 
 genius would not have ventured to invert 
 the verb in the final couplet, or to change 
 the music and motion so suddenly as it 
 is done in the first line of the second 
 stanza. He would probably have said, in 
 the latter instance : 
 
 Give me a trusty amulet, 
 
 or would have used some other adjective 
 to piece out a uniform rhythm. But this 
 broken chord exactly fits the sudden 
 shock of eagerness and passion at that 
 particular moment. A great musician puts 
 in discords purposely, which the full piece 
 resolves; but your Fadladeens, who know 
 how to "judge of everything, from the 
 pencilling of a Circassian s eyelids to the 
 deepest questions of science and litera 
 ture," see only the technical deficiency or 
 redundance, as the case may be. 
 
 
2 4 
 
 Among the few poems which Emerson 
 has keyed to the lighter movement, I 
 have always thought his "Una" stands 
 conspicuous for an ineffable, haunting 
 beauty, which, if I could, I should not 
 care to explain. With what captivating 
 touches he has shaped these stanzas and 
 couplets which I take from it below : 
 
 Roving, roving, as it seems, 
 Una lights my clouded dreams ; 
 Still for journeys she is dressed; 
 We wander far by east and west 
 
 If from home chance draw me wide, 
 Half-seen Una sits beside. 
 
 But if upon the seas I sail, 
 Or trundle on the glowing rail, 
 I am but a thought of hers, 
 Loveliest of travelers. 
 
 One can best understand the nature of 
 Emerson s poetry by taking some account 
 
2 5 
 
 of the view-point, or perspective, which 
 he employs. His own conception of what 
 it is that goes to the making of the true 
 bard will in some measure define his own 
 position. I open his oldest book of 
 poems almost by accident at " Merlin," 
 and hear him say : 
 
 The trivial harp will never please 
 
 Or fill my craving ear ; 
 
 Its chords should ring as blows the breeze, 
 
 Free, peremptory, clear. 
 
 No jingling serenader s art, 
 
 Nor tinkle of piano-strings, 
 
 Can make the wild blood start 
 
 In its mystic springs. 
 
 The kingly bard 
 
 Must smite the chords rudely and hard, 
 
 As with hammer or with mace ; 
 
 That they may render back 
 
 Artful thunder, which conveys 
 
 Secrets of the solar track, 
 
 Sparks of the supersolar blaze. 
 
 Great is the art, 
 
 Great be the manners, of the bard. 
 
26 
 
 He shall not his brain encumber 
 
 With the coil of rhythm and number ; 
 
 But, leaving rule and pale forethought, 
 
 He shall ay climb 
 
 For his rhyme. 
 
 " Pass in, pass in," the angels say, 
 
 " In to the upper doors, 
 
 Nor count compartments of the floors, 
 
 But mount to paradise 
 
 By the stair-way of surprise." 
 
 He shall not seek to weave, 
 In weak, unhappy times, 
 Efficacious rhymes ; 
 Wait his returning strength. 
 Bird, that from the nadir s floor 
 To the zenith s top can soar, 
 The soaring orbit of the muse exceeds that 
 journey s length. 
 
 I detect an almost playful Persian touch 
 in the final cadences of this extract, as if 
 the author were mounting to his purpose 
 "by the stair-way of surprise" or, as if 
 Hafiz or Firdousi himself were speaking. 
 It is said that Persian poetry and, in fact, 
 
27 
 
 all oriental verse admits of endless license 
 in the matter of rhythm and versification, 
 there being no less than three systems of 
 metre, marked by different rules, which need 
 not be kept separate, and which are often 
 allowably made to coalesce in a single 
 piece. But Emerson not only takes an 
 oriental freedom in his measures; he em 
 ploys, as the Asiatic bards do, all the 
 machinery of subtle, unexpected and fan 
 tastic conceit. His sensitive harp catches 
 in the air many tones. You find echoes of 
 Marlowe, Chapman, Milton, Marvell, Her 
 bert, Herrick, and Donne, and of all schools; 
 chords which go round the world and 
 through the centuries; and notably that 
 rich, that prodigal, luxurious, quintessential 
 attar which flows from the realm of the 
 rising sun. What Goethe says of the 
 Spanish poet Calderon (I quote Lord 
 Houghton s forcible translation) serves 
 
28 
 
 equally well if you substitute for his name 
 Emerson s : 
 
 Many a light the Orient throws, 
 O er the midland waters brought; 
 He alone who Hafiz knows 
 Knows what Calderon has thought. 
 
 In the " May-Day " volume some of 
 Emerson s own characteristic epigram verses 
 (the " Quatrains ") are placed in juxta 
 position to his terse translations, chiefly 
 oriental, and the kinship of the mintage 
 is, in some respects, curious. Shall we say 
 on account of this homogeneity that the 
 Oriental is but another Yankee ? Or is it 
 that the Yankee is merely the Oriental 
 moved farther west. At any rate, what Ha- 
 fiz addresses to himself, and what Emerson 
 says of him, are wondrously alike in mood, 
 texture, and tune. This is what Hafiz sings : 
 
 Thou foolish Hafiz ! say, do churls 
 Know the worth of Oman s pearls ? 
 Give the gem which dims the moon 
 To the noblest, or to none. 
 
2 9 
 
 And this is Emerson s portraiture which 
 follows : 
 
 Her passions the shy violet 
 From Hafiz never hides ; 
 Love-longings of the raptured bird 
 The bird to him confides. 
 
 Nor is the generic similarity of which I 
 speak, which these two quatrains partially 
 indicate, all owing to the fact that Emerson 
 puts his own flavor into the translation. 
 The truth is, if the translation here seems 
 (as it evidently does) a little more like 
 Emerson than it does like Hafiz, the bal 
 ance is more than preserved by his steeping 
 his own original quatrain in a little tincture 
 of the wine and spirit of oriental thought. 
 When he translated Hafiz, he was probably 
 thinking of his own workmanship ; when he 
 described him, he was simply absorbed in 
 the milieu of the Persian poet. 
 
 One of his draughts on the Persian muse y 
 which is so alive and fluent that it fairly 
 
3 
 
 sings and dances itself into the reader s 
 brain, is the mystic " Song of Seid Nimetollah 
 of Kuhistan," which is sung and danced by 
 the Dervishes in one of their religious exer 
 cises. I give only the first stanza but the 
 whole is worth the reader s attention : 
 
 Spin the ball! I reel, I burn, 
 Nor head from foot can I discern, 
 Nor my heart from love of mine, 
 Nor the wine-cup from the wine. 
 All my doing, all my leaving, 
 Reaches not to my perceiving; 
 Lost in whirling spheres I rove, 
 And know only that I love. 
 
 Saadi s objective verses the ethics and 
 anecdote of " The Gulistan " have also 
 won the high regard and compliment of 
 Emerson. Many of his devoted readers 
 will recall, before they reach this reference 
 to it, his enthusiastic article on " Persian 
 Poetry," published twenty years ago in the 
 Atlantic Monthly, in which he interspersed, 
 
3 1 
 
 with great relish, bits and nuggets of various 
 authors, drawn from Von Hammer Purg- 
 stall s Persian anthology. 
 
 It is difficult, I find, to speak of Emer 
 son s poetry without frequently thinking 
 over or stepping over the line which sepa 
 rates it from his prose the spiritual border 
 land being so faint, elusive, and indefinite. 
 Both have been often accused of being 
 inconsecutive " not logical, but analog 
 ical," as Alcott says a disarranged jumble 
 of shining thoughts ; and I note, in Emer 
 son s preface to Gladwin s translation of 
 " The Gulistan," that he says : " Wonder 
 ful is the inconsecutiveness of the Persian 
 poets. * * * No topic is too remote 
 for their rapid suggestion. The Ghaselle, 
 or Kassida, is a chapter of proverbs, or 
 proverbs unchaptered, unthreaded beads 
 of all colors, sizes, and values. Out of 
 every ambush these leap on the unwary 
 
 
32 
 
 reader." Of Saadi, he says: "Through 
 his Persian dialect he speaks to all nations, 
 and like Homer, Shakespeare, Cervantes, 
 and Montaigne, is perpetually modern." 
 In his long poem dedicated to this serene 
 old bard who is said to have divided 
 his life up into sections of about thirty 
 years for experience, meditation, and travel, 
 and who devoted the last thirty and more 
 of them, until he died, aged 102, to medi 
 tation and literary work Emerson says: 
 
 His words, like a storm-wind, can bring 
 
 Terror and beauty on their wing; 
 
 In his every syllable . 
 
 Lurketh nature veritable; 
 
 And though he speak in midnight dark, 
 
 In heaven no star, on earth no spark, 
 
 Yet before the listener s eye 
 
 Swims the world in ecstasy. 
 
 The forest waves, the morning breaks, 
 
 The pastures sleep, ripple the lakes, 
 
 Leaves twinkle, flowers like persons be, 
 
 And life pulsates in rock or tree. 
 
 Saadi, so far thy words shall reach ; 
 
 Suns rise and set in Saadi s speech ! 
 
33 
 
 How dearly Emerson likes a deep and 
 wide utterance. He welcomes and hugs 
 the thought which sweeps over a broad 
 swath. Nothing less than the whole 
 curve which reaches from sunrise to sun 
 set will satisfy him. It is our littleness, 
 our monotony he would tell us that 
 reprobates a foreign garb of speech, or 
 terms a remote manner provincial. The 
 universality, scope, and depth which he 
 attains give to his outlines the breadth 
 and largeness of cartoons which rest 
 against an unlimited background. The 
 extent of his draught, like that which 
 Thor took from the drinking-horn of the 
 giants at Jotunheim, seems to imply an 
 oceanic ebb and the motion of cosmic 
 currents. 
 
 I am perpetually impressed with the 
 high majesty and solemnity of Emerson s 
 muse. If it touches anything trivial or 
 3 
 
34 
 
 commonplace, it does not leave it so. 
 " When we speak of the poet in any high 
 sense," he writes, " we are driven to such 
 examples as Zoroaster and Plato, St. John 
 and Menu, with their moral burdens." 
 If the spiritual purpose and pretension of 
 the old Greek oracles stood buttressed 
 behind its utterance, it could not well be 
 more earnest or more oracular. How he 
 uses and respects his art may be judged 
 by this extract from his poem of " The 
 Problem." 
 
 Not from a vain or shallow thought 
 
 His awful Jove young Phidias brought; 
 
 Never from lips of cunning fell 
 
 The thrilling Delphic oracle; 
 
 Out from the heart of nature rolled 
 
 The burdens of the Bible old; 
 
 The litanies of nations came, 
 
 Like the volcano s tongue of flame, 
 
 Up from the burning core below, 
 
 The canticles of love and woe ; 
 
 The hand that rounded Peter s dome 
 
 And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, 
 
35 
 
 Wrought in a sad sincerity ; 
 Himself from God he could not free; 
 He builded better than he knew, 
 The conscious stone to beauty grew. 
 
 A sense of dignity and reverent beauty 
 transfuses his artistic expression, and is 
 never absent from his thought. The 
 artist, whoever he be in the Emersonian 
 horoscope works in "love and terror." 
 He translates the soul of things; and, 
 faithfully spelling out the elusive secrets 
 of Nature and the human heart, finds that 
 he, too, is adjudged a part of the great 
 scheme. 
 
 In the same poem he says: 
 
 Earth proudly wears the Parthenon, 
 As the best gem upon her zone ; 
 And morning opes with haste her lids 
 To gaze upon the Pyramids ; 
 O er England s abbeys bends the sky, 
 As on its friends, with kindred eye, 
 For, out of thought s interior sphere, 
 These wonders rose to upper air; 
 
36 
 
 And Nature gladly gave them place, 
 Adopted them into her race, 
 And granted them an equal date 
 With Andes and with Ararat. 
 
 Who, now, is the poet that Emerson 
 recognizes, and how shall we describe him ? 
 In a suggestive summary he puts the traits 
 of this interpreter in the opening of his 
 exquisite " Woodnotes " : 
 
 When the pine tosses its cones 
 To the song of its waterfall tones, 
 Who speeds to the woodland walks? 
 To birds and trees who talks? 
 Caesar of his leafy Rome, 
 There the poet is at home. 
 He goes to the river-side, 
 Not hook nor line hath he; 
 He stands in the meadows wide, 
 Nor gun nor scythe to see : 
 Sure some god his eye enchants : 
 What he knows nobody wants. 
 
 Knowledge this man prizes best 
 Seems fantastic to the rest: 
 
37 
 
 Pondering shadows, colors, clouds, 
 Grass-buds and cater pillar -shrouds, 
 Boughs on which the wild bees settle, 
 Tints that spot the violet s petal, 
 Why Nature loves the number five, 
 And why the star-form she repeats : 
 Lover of all things alive, 
 Wonderer at all he meets, 
 Wonderer chiefly at himself, 
 Who can tell him what he is ? 
 Or how meet in human elf 
 Coming and past eternities ? 
 
 The poet, then, in this stoutly painted 
 character, is not to be divorced from a cer 
 tain religious sanctity an almost priestly 
 habit a mediatorship between the ineffa 
 ble and man. And I know of none in the 
 whole range of literature who so answers to 
 this conception as Emerson. This fiber is 
 illustrated by the circumstance that, in 
 lineage, he is the product of eight genera 
 tions, from no one of which, either on the 
 paternal or maternal side, was the minister 
 absent. The fact of this long ministerial 
 
descent enables Burroughs, who has uttered 
 some vivid sayings about his prose, to de 
 clare of him that " the blood in his veins 
 has been teaching and preaching, and think 
 ing and growing austere these many genera 
 tions. * * The virtues of all those New 
 England ministers and all those tomes of 
 sermons are in this casket." 
 
 It is a strong spiritual effluence you ex 
 tract from all he prints, either in prose or 
 verse a savor of Sinai and the moral law. 
 He plants the flower edelweiss and alpine 
 beauty on these high glaciers. A most 
 importunate and patient searcher he is 
 after the inmost meaning of things. He 
 would miss nothing that is significant; he 
 will crowd the universe into a nutshell, and 
 makes every line bear the burden that 
 weaker writers bestow on a whole page. It 
 is the very pith and marrow of the matter 
 which he wishes to unfold; and nothing 
 
39 
 
 satisfies him that is less than a piercing 
 stroke into the deep below the deep. 
 
 With what pure selection he chooses 
 every word. His whole life-time has gone 
 into the making of a few volumes not 
 much more than half a dozen in all and 
 the longer he lives the more he cramps and 
 bereaves them ; but what wit, and strength, 
 and beauty, and eloquence they uphold! 
 What a supreme, audacious splendor ! In 
 the slow manner in which he writes, and 
 erases; in the long time he holds his proof- 
 sheets for perusal, reperusal, and retouching 
 of the text, to the great perplexity of his 
 publishers (if they have not long since be 
 come used to it), is shown the intense 
 thoroughness and winnowing he applies to 
 each separate part and piece. In his poem * 
 
 * The muse which speaks here is the World- 
 Muse ; or, as Mr. Kennedy says, the Genius of 
 Life; but, in a more limited sense, the process 
 described justifies my illustration. 
 
40 
 
 of " The Test" (Musa Loquitur) he betrays 
 with what searching scrutiny each line is 
 put into final shape : 
 
 I hung my verses in the wind, 
 
 Time and tide their faults may find. 
 
 All were winnowed through and through, 
 
 Five lines lasted sound and true, 
 
 Five were smelted in a pot 
 
 Than the South more fierce and hot 
 
 These the siroc could not melt; 
 
 Five their fiercer flaming felt, 
 
 And the meaning was more white 
 
 Than July s meridian light. 
 
 Sunshine cannot bleach the snow, 
 
 Nor time unmake what poets know. 
 
 Have you eyes to find the five 
 
 Which five hundred did survive ? 
 
 Endless and persistent with him is this 
 fiery expurgation, collation, and revision. 
 " In reading prose," he says, " I am sen 
 sitive as soon as a sentence drags, but in 
 poetry as soon as one word drags." Such 
 a value he puts upon perfect expression. 
 A properly termed extemporaneous utter- 
 
ance is not natural with him, and, when 
 he seems to have yielded to occasional 
 utterance, as in the " Hymn " written for 
 the completion of the Concord monument, 
 and one or two other pieces, the excep 
 tions are voided of force by the probable 
 coincidence of a genuine inspiration with 
 the occasion. But the theory which rules 
 his habit is not left without proof. In 
 one of his earliest essays, he confides to 
 his readers that "the inexorable rule in 
 the muse s court, either inspiration or 
 silence, compels the bard to report only 
 his supreme moments. It teaches the 
 enormous force of a few words, and in 
 proportion to the inspiration checks lo 
 quacity." As his beloved Herrick says: 
 
 Tis not every day that I 
 Fitted am to prophesy. 
 No ; but when the spirit fills 
 The fantastic pinnacles 
 
Full of fire, then I write 
 As the Godhead doth indite. 
 Thus enraged my lines are hurled, 
 Like the Sibyls, through the world. 
 Look, how next the holy fire 
 Either slakes, or doth retire; 
 So the fancy carols, till when 
 That brave spirit comes again. 
 
 It is interesting to compare the poems 
 as they stand in his first book with the 
 book now current, which contains every 
 thing already offered in book form that 
 he cares to preserve. The real changes 
 are not so many; but some of the most 
 competent and loyal lovers of Emerson s 
 poetry grieve at any change. They hesi 
 tate in having any line that he has ever 
 written blotted or blurred. I discern in 
 the latest volume four poems that I do 
 not find in either of the two volumes pre 
 ceding it, viz. : " April," " Maiden Speech 
 of the ^Eolian Harp," " Cupido," and 
 
43 
 
 "The Nun s Aspiration," besides a few 
 that have been picked out of his maga 
 zine contributions of late* years. Another, 
 entitled simply "The Harp," is merely a 
 long episode taken from "May- Day" as 
 it first appeared ; and this " May-Day " 
 poem has itself undergone in its new 
 guise, in addition to this long elision, a 
 variety of permutations similar to that 
 which would happen if half its paragraphs 
 were to be taken and shuffled like a pack 
 of cards. The traditional critic would sig 
 nal this as an evidence of invalidity in 
 the poem, but the admirer of Emerson 
 sees in the fact that it survives such a 
 shock the deep spiritual content of it, and 
 feels that it has filaments which secure its 
 unity against all accidents of disrupted 
 logical succession or mere verbal weld 
 ing. Sufficient to each part is its own 
 meaning, while each also conspires to a 
 
44 
 
 ravishing wholeness quite beyond an ordi 
 nary writer s reach. A few lines I find 
 are omitted, but the transformation is the 
 chief change. 
 
 In the "Woodnotes," the first six lines 
 are omitted, and those which immediately 
 follow are accommodated to this change; 
 but farther on a large paragraph is dis 
 carded, and a considerable part of another 
 is placed in the section marked Part II. 
 In Part II. there are fewer changes; but 
 these electric lines, among others, are 
 missing : 
 
 I will teach the bright parable 
 Older than time, 
 Things undecla/able, 
 Visions sublime. 
 
 In " Waldeinsamkeit," the last line of 
 the first stanza is wholly changed, and the 
 penultimate stanza is omitted. In " Mer 
 lin," Part II. is entirely omitted from the 
 
45 
 
 revised poems. These do not include all 
 the changes ; but I do not care to com- 
 .plete the list, or to say more about them 
 than to remark that, when allowance is 
 made for what is wholly left out or sim 
 ply re-arranged, there were but few verbal 
 or essential modifications that seemed fit 
 to be made even to the author s fastidious 
 judgment.* I notice a typographical error 
 occurs in the new edition at the end of 
 Part I. of the " Woodnotes," which makes 
 the final line end with a comma joined 
 to a dash. My copy of this edition bears 
 date of 1879; though I also possess, and 
 have at hand, the first edition (copyright 
 of 1846) and the " May-Day " collection. 
 These three books contain, with the ex 
 ception of a part of the motto-poems in 
 " The Conduct of Life " and other prose 
 works, all of Emerson s poetry, I be- 
 
 * See Appendix. 
 
4 6 
 
 lieve, that has so far found its way into 
 covers. 
 
 As a pendant to the bibliographical side 
 of my subject, I venture to think the follow 
 ing poem, written by Emerson when he 
 was twenty-six years old, and which has 
 never appeared in any edition of his works, 
 will be of interest to the reader. I am in 
 debted for it to a friend whose copy of it 
 bears a preface by Col. T. W. Higginson, 
 which says, "it is taken from a little volume 
 called The Offering, which was published by 
 the Cambridge Divinity Students in 1829." 
 While its intrinsic value is not small, it 
 piques curiosity from the fact that it exhibits 
 the early groping of the author s mind 
 toward its present mold of form : 
 
 FAME. 
 
 Ah, Fate ! cannot a man 
 
 Be wise without a beard? 
 From East to West, from Beersheba to Dan, 
 Say, was it never heard 
 
47 
 
 That wisdom might in youth be gotten, 
 Or wit be ripe before twas rotten? 
 
 He pays too high a price 
 
 For knowledge and for fame 
 Who gives his sinews to be wise, 
 
 His teeth and bones to buy a name, 
 And crawls through life a paralytic, 
 To earn the praise of bard and critic. 
 
 Is it not better done, 
 
 To dine and sleep through forty years, 
 Be loved by few, be feared by none, 
 
 Laugh life away, have wine for tears, 
 And take the mortal leap undaunted, 
 Content that all we ask was granted? 
 
 But Fate will not permit 
 
 The seeds of gods to die, 
 Nor suffer sense to win from wit 
 
 Its guerdon in the sky; 
 Nor let us hide, whate er our pleasure, 
 The world s light underneath a measure. 
 
 Go, then, sad youth, and shine! 
 
 Go, sacrifice to fame; 
 Put love, joy, health, upon the shrine, 
 
 And life to fan the flame! 
 Thy hapless self for praises barter, 
 And die to Fame an honored martyr. 
 
4 8 
 
 I do not forget the fact that some wise 
 and cultured people are confounded by 
 Emerson s poetry. It is portentous and 
 unfathomable, and they skip the page which 
 offers them nothing. Like some who dis 
 like Wagner s music, they have never yet 
 felt the key-note. A critical English jour 
 nal has made the unqualified declaration 
 that Emerson is not a poet; and what, for 
 the want of a real academy, we may term 
 academical tradition, sides largely with the 
 dissidents. But argument is as futile with 
 this state of mental inaptitude as it is with 
 the color-blind. There is no delinquency 
 of perception so unhelpable as that which 
 discerns but one literary fashion. A candid 
 and broader view will not believe that 
 beauty exhausts itself in a single type. 
 Genius is for the most part a law unto 
 itself, and is usually the element which is 
 certain to escape your most precise defini- 
 
49 
 
 tion. You demand a logical order, and do 
 not find it. Remember, to the careless eye 
 the clear stars of a winter evening are but 
 so many single points ; but to the astron 
 omer, the mechanism of the universe, and 
 the music of the spheres of which they are 
 the symbols, are not less imagined and real. 
 I find in Emerson s poetry (and the obser 
 vation touches his prose as well) a constant 
 relation to the breadth of some endless 
 horizon. Each line is an arrow swept 
 across, or into the center of the universe ; 
 and it is not a common divinity that has 
 drawn the bow. "The poet," he says, 
 " gives us the eminent experience only 
 a god stepping from peak to peak, nor 
 planting his foot but on a mountain." 
 "Jewels all," says Alcott. "Separate 
 stars," * * but, "vistas opening far and 
 wide." * * " There is substance, sod, sun ; 
 much fair weather in the seer as in his 
 
5 
 
 leaves. The whole quaternion of the sea 
 sons, the sidereal year has been poured into 
 these periods. Afternoon walks furnished 
 their perspective, rounded and melodized 
 them." It is the art of Emerson to load 
 and overload his words with the most 
 urgent stress of beauty and meaning. They 
 are suggestive in unnamable directions, 
 and, as Lowell says, " fecundative " "a 
 divining-rod to our deeper natures." Chan- 
 ning says of them : 
 
 The circles of thy thought shine vast as stars, 
 
 No glass shall round them, 
 
 No plummet sound them, 
 They hem the observer like bright steel- wrought bars, 
 
 And limpid as the sun, 
 
 Or as bright waters run 
 
 From the cold fountain of the Alpine springs, 
 Or diamonds richly set in the king s rings. 
 
 What force and grace stream from lines 
 like these, where he terms the Humble- 
 bee 
 
5 1 
 
 Thou animated torrid zone ! 
 
 Sailor of the atmosphere ; 
 Swimmer through the waves of air ; 
 Voyager of light and noon ; 
 Epicurean of June ; 
 
 and one may read as well for the same 
 qualities the whole poem. Or these lines 
 below, taken with little selection from 
 " May-Day " : 
 
 The youth reads omens where he goes, 
 And speaks all languages the rose. 
 
 Is it Daedalus ? Is it love ? 
 
 Or walks in mask almighty Jove, 
 
 And drops from Power s redundant horn 
 
 All seeds of beauty to be born ? 
 
 But soft ! a sultry morning breaks ; 
 The ground-pines wash their rusty green, 
 The maple-tops their crimson tint, 
 On the soft path each track is seen, 
 The girl s foot leaves its neater print. 
 The pebble loosened from the frost 
 Asks of the urchin to be tost. 
 
5 2 
 
 Or read the second and final paragraphs 
 in the " Ode to Beauty," or the whole 
 of "The Rhodora," "The Snow-Storm," 
 the "Two Rivers," and "The Sea-Shore." 
 Where did an elegy ever strike more 
 touching depths than the incomparable 
 " Threnody " ? What farewell to the muse, 
 or to authorship, will you find more tender 
 or pathetic than " Terminus " ? But the 
 aggravation of quoting from our author 
 is, that you leave so much which might 
 just as well be quoted. To attempt this 
 exercise is also to incur the grievous dis 
 appointment described in his poem " Each 
 and All," where the " sparrow in his nest " 
 and the "delicate sea-shells" were taken 
 from the large setting which gave them 
 their prime significance. I cannot drop 
 my reference to the " Threnody," however, 
 without repeating what a gifted English 
 poet who is a felicitous critic by inter- 
 
53 
 
 vals has uttered with reference to elegiac 
 verse. He says that the "Lycidas" of 
 Milton, the "Adonais" of Shelley, and 
 " The Thyrsis " of Matthew Arnold, are 
 " three elegiac poems so great that they 
 eclipse and efface all the elegiac poetry 
 we know ; all of Italian, all of Greek." 
 Noting, as he does not, Tennyson s long 
 poem of sorrow as a worthy member of 
 this group, I must also add to them 
 Emerson s " Threnody," which, though so 
 different, is no inferior in this shining 
 company 
 
 The stimulus and inspiration which in 
 here in Emerson s words are matchless. 
 Their melody is not only unique, but 
 supreme : 
 
 a melody born of melody, 
 Which melts the world into a sea. 
 Toil could never compass it, 
 Art its height could never hit, 
 It came never out of wit. 
 

 54 
 
 Burroughs s testimony is that Emerson 
 "has written plenty of poems that are 
 as melodious as the hum of a wild bee 
 in the air chords of wild seolian music. 
 * * Not in the poetry of any of his con 
 temporaries is there such a burden of the 
 mystery of things or such round wind- 
 harp tones, lines so tense and resonant, 
 and blown upon by a breeze from the 
 highest heaven of thought." And he 
 quotes Rossetti, who says : " He is a Druid 
 who wanders among the bards and strikes 
 the harp with even more than bardic 
 
 stress." 
 
 I admit that Emerson has done what 
 Carlyle did perfected a mold of speech, 
 in his own way, for himself and that he 
 does not always obey the prescribed poet 
 ical canons; defies them, in fact, with 
 unusual license. He pours forth at times 
 broken, irregular verses; deals in abrupt 
 
55 
 
 transitions of thought; employs occasion 
 ally astonishing rhymes; and leaves to the 
 reader some discretion and part in weaving 
 together the continuity of his ideas. One 
 may not think that down and dimension, 
 success and Eumenides, bear and wood 
 pecker, and the like have any more right 
 to be married in rhyme, than have the 
 elephant and the kangaroo; but he puts 
 them together with a strange felicity, and 
 the archaism becomes a beauty rather than 
 a blemish. But I am citing extreme cases 
 here with full intent. In other couplets 
 as in these, for instance 
 
 Give to barrows, trays, and pans, 
 Grace and glimmer of romance; 
 
 Is the ancestor of wars 
 And the parent of remorse ; 
 
 Love shuns the sage, the child it crowns, 
 Gives all to them who all renounce 
 
56 
 
 he secures such a flavor as haunts and 
 holds you long after their spell has been 
 uttered. The wish which the poet often 
 feels to get out of ruts, and abandon the 
 Delia Cruscan tameness of such frequently 
 repeated rhymes as day and May, fly and 
 sky, breeze and trees, hour and flower, is 
 easily compassed by Emerson through the 
 virility of his vocabulary, and the strange 
 and subtle force he can put in his final 
 words and syllables the rhyming chords. 
 The new English school of poets, some 
 times called the preraphaelites, of which 
 Swinburne, Rossetti, and Morris are the 
 chiefs, attain a similar end by making use, 
 with marked effect, of such rhymes as 
 thing and thanksgiving, her and harp-player, 
 where the ictus must of necessity fall, in 
 the rhyming word, on the penultimate 
 syllable, instead of on the rhyming one. 
 
 It should not be hard for a trained and 
 cultivated ear to acquire a liking for the 
 
57 
 
 magic of Emerson s melody; and when the 
 mind is in sympathy with the scale of 
 thought, and beats in time with it, there 
 befalls a ravishment which unfits the recipi 
 ent for any lesser strain. He will no longer 
 tolerate a thinner tune; the weaker and 
 watered phrases which before delighted 
 seem emptied forever of their old charm 
 and power. It is a music in which color, 
 aroma, and prismatic light are blended. 
 Not Offenbach s passional, laughter-like 
 and giddy but rather a symphony like 
 Beethoven s, which would pierce, or leave 
 the gates of paradise ajar. Inevitably there 
 will be no popular, applauding crowd to 
 listen. It is keyed for a select group in a 
 vast cathedral, whose roof is the overarching 
 sky, and whose long, resounding corridors 
 are made to awaken the deepest imaginings 
 of the human soul. 
 
 We shall never have a second Emerson, 
 any more than we shall have a second 
 
Shakespeare. Let us not be afraid to cele 
 brate him. We are told that he has limita 
 tions that he could not produce an epic 
 or a drama, and, most likely, would find it 
 difficult to write an acceptable love-story 
 for the magazines and newspapers. He 
 commits the unpardonable sin, with ortho 
 dox theories of literature, in writing about 
 Shakespeare as he does, and counter to 
 all traditions calling his dramatic power 
 " secondary." I know that Shakespeare 
 picked up his plots from Boccaccio and 
 others; how am I to know that even he 
 had the power to produce a plot ? It was 
 his habit, certainly, to take the most of them 
 at second hand. But Emerson s argument, 
 I take it, is that, after they are produced, 
 they are merely the frame for his large 
 idealism his masterly, colossal, overpower 
 ing, spermatic thought. Can Shakespeare 
 get, did any one ever get, one stroke 
 
59 
 
 beyond the power of pure, primitive 
 thought ? Does any one hold that there 
 is a primum mobile in mere mechanism? 
 Finally, is not all this talk about the 
 splendor of the drama, because it is drama 
 
 the glory of the epos or tale simply so 
 
 much laudation of the spoon from which 
 we eat and drink? Or can the vehicle 
 supersede and sanctify the thing that is 
 conveyed ? 
 
 I am as much captivated by the delicious 
 charm of stories and dramatic situations as 
 any one can be. Childhood not only craves 
 this pleasure, but we ourselves never out 
 grow the child-like desire to behold a social 
 orrery in which persons take the places of 
 planets, and range through their related 
 orbits. If a few minds notably Emerson s 
 
 have outgrown the necessity for these 
 
 crutches to help them walk, these glasses 
 to help them see, and can dispense with 
 
6o 
 
 literary jack-straws, or complicated lay- 
 figures, must they be set down as fatally 
 bereaved? It is no disparagement to the 
 drama if we insist that it shall not be pro 
 nounced as a shibboleth. Let a master use 
 what medium he pleases he shall be a 
 master still ; and whether Emerson is really 
 limited or self-limited, I hail him as a mem 
 ber of that inspired choir which he de 
 scribes one of those 
 
 Olympian bards who sung 
 
 Divine ideas below, 
 Which always find us young, 
 
 And always keep us so. 
 
 Our delight in Emerson, in fact, springs 
 largely from his loftiness of vision. His 
 perspective is that of the aeronaut s, and 
 he never falls or falters below it. There is 
 not a line which descends from the first 
 high level. Such uniformity of altitude no 
 writer that I know of so steadily maintains. 
 
6i 
 
 
 
 Here is so high a voice that it never leaves 
 the sunshine is never swathed in shadows 
 but, like the final one in Longfellow s 
 "Excelsior," falls 
 
 "like a falling star." 
 
 A proverb-like fullness, purity of tone, 
 magnetic phrases, the beating of the Puri 
 tan pulse, are in his speech. In his poems, 
 the titles are half-poems. His sentences 
 tingle with tense, metallic vibration. He is 
 a perpetual surprise. You read deep secrets 
 through him as Coleridge read Shakespeare 
 through Kean s acting "by flashes of 
 lightning." We miss in his page the first 
 note of tumult or turbulence. Two symbols 
 which occur in his prose and recur in his 
 poetry the ^Eolian Harp and the Pine- 
 Tree (which is but another ^Eolian Harp) 
 fitly express his genius. It is through 
 these that we have access to and communi- 
 
62 
 
 cation with the deep, vague whispers of 
 immensity and eternity. 
 
 Many years ago Mr. Emerson handed 
 me a slip of paper, at the end of an inter 
 view, on which he had written a couplet of 
 his own, which, I think, has never yet found 
 its way into print. I give it below because 
 it partakes of his essential quality, and also 
 because it helps me to point a reflection. 
 Thus it reads : 
 
 A score of airy miles will smooth 
 Rough Monadnock to a gem. 
 
 The alert reader will perceive at once 
 that this thought is substantially equivalent 
 in purport to Campbell s well-worn distich 
 below : 
 
 Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, 
 And robes the mountains in their azure hue. 
 
 But one is delicate, suggestive ; the other 
 direct and prosaic. The first is cloth of silk 
 
63 
 
 and gold ; the second is calico, in compari 
 son, or, perhaps, fustian. He who makes 
 choice between these two forms discloses 
 and defines his own measure of poetic per 
 ception puts himself on the empyreal 
 summit, or settles in the shallows of com 
 monplace. 
 
 It cannot be too often repeated that 
 Emerson s poetry is, above all its felici 
 ties, alive with moral purport and motive. 
 Emerson no more deals in art for art s 
 sake than you build your house for the dis 
 play of a cornice and picturesque angles. 
 What he has to say leaps forth from an 
 overpowering burden a weight of com 
 pulsion restrained up to the point of the 
 irresistible. His poetry is not so much 
 made as it is received and retold. It is 
 the mouth-piece of the moral sentiment, 
 the transpiration of original and primitive 
 promptings the breath of the Oversoul. 
 
6 4 
 
 And yet there is no part of its form that 
 is not carefully studied and shaped. The 
 most wayward line, the most frolicsome 
 paragraph, as the indentations and type 
 run, are adjusted after a strictly stud 
 ied and conscientious plan. The pedant, 
 whose sense of scansion and balanced 
 rhythm never went farther than Pope s 
 heroic couplet, looks up confounded at it, 
 and thinks he has discovered an escape 
 from Bedlam. He finds his " settled liter 
 ary opinions and tastes disturbed," and he 
 has no conception of any other. 
 
 The late Prof. Reed, who made some 
 acute observations on this limited literary 
 sense, said : " It is the highest attribute of 
 original powers to enlarge the sphere of 
 human sensibility. Think, for instance, 
 how the light of Spenser s imagination at 
 once disclosed to view the untraveled lati 
 tudes of his mavelous allegory. * * * 
 When a poet of original powers arises, 
 
65 
 
 his very originality can be shown only by 
 extending the light of his genius to regions 
 of thought and feeling unillumined before." 
 In another place he says : " Each poet of 
 original genius dwells in an atmosphere 
 of his own, and he who seeks to know 
 him must learn to breathe it. * * He 
 must needs live in it for a brief space." 
 
 Emerson s attitude to the universe has 
 a certain resemblance to Swedenborg s, but 
 is without the slightest touch, though, of 
 that hallucinated seer s dogma, and coarse, 
 mechanical contrivance. He reports from 
 an immanent spirit the closest correspond 
 ences between the soul and material ex 
 pression. There is no limit to his reverent 
 wonder; even the slightest thing takes on 
 the hue of miracle. I am often reminded, 
 by his manner of evolving his verses, of 
 Wordsworth s curious child, 
 
 applying to his ear 
 The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell. 
 
 5 
 
66 
 
 As the roaring sea, unseen and afar off, 
 spoke to his inland imagination, evoking 
 continual awe and wonder, so the earth, 
 sky, and sea speak to Emerson. His 
 rapture with Nature rises to perennial in 
 spiration to a serene, excessive delight. 
 Shown equally in a score of examples, I 
 only quote here, as an instance, the con 
 clusion to " The Rhodora " : 
 
 Rhodora ! if the sages ask thee why 
 This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, 
 Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, 
 Then beauty is its own excuse for being : 
 Why thou wert there, O rival of the Rose ! 
 I never thought to ask I never knew; 
 But, in my simple ignorance, suppose 
 The self -same power that brought me there 
 brought you. 
 
 This ecstasy and raptness melt at times 
 into a subtle mysticism, or burst into He 
 braic austerity of enunciation. In moods 
 like these the oracular voice becomes, 
 
6 7 
 
 occasionally, so intent on its utterance, as 
 to appear enigmatic and puzzling. Per 
 haps the quatrain given below, written for 
 Mrs. Sargent, and which Emerson himself 
 has never printed, will exhibit what I 
 suggest. It is a miniature sermon on 
 charity and I am quoting Mr. Sanborn, 
 I think, in saying that we have here "his 
 exact oracular words, such as he chooses 
 for verse, leaving the reader to make the 
 best of them, and careless if he sometimes 
 makes the worst of them " 
 
 The beggar begs by God s command, 
 And gifts awake when givers sleep : 
 Swords cannot cut the giving hand, 
 Nor stab the love that orphans keep. 
 
 It is Mr. Sanborn, at any rate, who 
 says this apropos of Emerson s verse : " It 
 is the privilege of exquisite beauty, and 
 of that nobility of soul which is the coun- 
 
68 
 
 terpart and masculine response to beauty, 
 instantly to deprive us of all power of 
 comparison. They are like nothing in 
 our experience, they suggest nothing but 
 themselves and each other, and in their 
 brightness all things else appear but as 
 dust in the sunshine. Whoever has not 
 had this vision, nor felt this kindling of 
 the soul in reading or listening to Emer 
 son, must have failed to meet his thought 
 at all, and therefore be as incapable of 
 understanding him as the deaf are to ap 
 preciate music. * * It was said of 
 Socrates, in a doubtful compliment, that he 
 brought philosophy down from heaven to 
 earth. It might as truly be said of Emer 
 son that he raises earth to the level of di 
 vine philosophy a loftier art. His method 
 in this is a purely poetic one, and there 
 fore, while he lacks what is ordinarily called 
 creative power in verse, he moves more 
 
6 9 
 
 constantly than any recent poet in the 
 atmosphere of poesy. Since Milton and 
 Spenser, no man not even Goethe has 
 equaled Emerson in this trait, which, like 
 personal beauty, as has been said, can 
 neither be explained nor criticised. There 
 it is. If you do not see it, God help you ! 
 for none of us can ! 
 
 A brilliant French writer remarks that 
 well-selected words are sentences abridged. 
 Schelling says, " In good prose every word 
 is underscored." It was a favorite saying 
 of the Pandits that " an author rejoice th 
 in the economizing of half a short vowel 
 as much as in the birth of a son ! " 
 Apter illustrations of this emphasis of 
 brevity cannot be found than in Emer 
 son s style. How constantly he surprises 
 by not only pressing all the meaning out 
 of a word, but by crowding voluminous 
 and unsuspected force into it? All his 
 
7 
 
 verses bristle with this power. Mr. F. H. 
 Hedge pronounces his poem of "The 
 Problem " as " wholly unique, and tran 
 scending all contemporary verse in grandeur 
 of style." Of all the poems Frederika 
 Bremer said : " They are all to me as a 
 breeze from the life of the New World, in a 
 certain illimitable vastness of life, in expec 
 tation, in demand, in faith, in hope, a 
 something which makes me draw a deeper 
 breath, and, as it were, in a larger and freer 
 world." Joined to this strength is the web 
 and spell of beauty from which he never for 
 a moment escapes. What he says of Saadi, 
 in a part of a fragment of one poem not yet 
 submitted by him to the public, fits equally 
 his own gift : 
 
 Northward he went to the snowy hills; 
 At court he sat in grave Divan. 
 His music was the south-wind s sigh, 
 His lamp the maiden s downcast eye; 
 And ever the spell of Beauty came, 
 
7 1 
 
 And turned the drowsy world to flame, 
 By lake, and stream, and gleaming hall, 
 And modest copse and forest tall, 
 Where er he went, the magic guide 
 Kept its place by the poet s side. 
 
 If we return now to the previous ques 
 tion, and ask, What is poetry ? a thousand 
 answers confront us. When Joubert said 
 that " Boileau is a powerful poet, but only in 
 the world of half poetry," his final phrase 
 flashed with illumination. " How true that 
 is of Pope also ! " says Matthew Arnold. 
 To many, poetry is indissolubly confounded 
 with a counting of their fingers; and a 
 consciousness of this prevalent faith made 
 an irreverent critic say that any one who can 
 measure tape can write the poetry of Pope. 
 The witty mot had a grain of truth under 
 its extravagance, but overlooked Pope s 
 prodigal power in one direction. No sane 
 critic now, I am sure, considers the " Essay 
 on Man" as anything more than an admi- 
 
72 
 
 rable piece of worldly wit put in rhymed 
 epigram. Still, it is the best " half poetry " 
 that the world of the eighteenth century 
 had to show. Poetry that is whole, or 
 entire, has for its fountain-head the imagi 
 nation; but this is a theme too large for 
 subsidiary discussion, or for treatment as an 
 episode. 
 
 Carlyle s averment that poetry is " mu 
 sical thought" is good enough so far 
 as it goes. And, if we take what he 
 himself says of music, the description 
 applies perfectly to some of the deep and 
 far-away tones of Emerson s muse. That 
 haunting, undulating thrill which capti 
 vates the soul and defies expression pulses 
 through, and is in, the very midst of it. Its 
 offering cannot always be translated into 
 exact phrases meaning so much and no 
 more; for it is "a kind of inarticulate, un 
 fathomable speech, which leads us to the 
 
73 
 
 edge of the Infinite, and lets us for mo 
 ments gaze into that ! " 
 
 Emerson s genius though it contains, as 
 I have said, the core and heart of the East 
 is, in form, essentially Northern and 
 Gothic; not tropical, or equatorial. It 
 has a hyperborean birth, and sometimes 
 shows a touch of sturdy Berserker wrath. 
 The volcano within is capped with ice and 
 snow above emotion subservient to intel 
 lect. It is power, passion, infinite restraint, 
 and repose working in unison. The beauty 
 of his lines has sometimes the effect upon 
 me of an arctic landscape. I walk through 
 the enchantments of Niflheim. I see the 
 splendors of icebergs and ice-clad forests, 
 frosty stalactites and prismatic wonders, 
 gleaming auroras, and all that gives a crys 
 talline delight. And yet, if you interpret 
 the fable so as to make it mean the spirit 
 ually dead, it is "poetry which, like the 
 
74 
 
 verses inscribed on Balder s column at 
 Breidablik, is capable of restoring the dead 
 to life." Its regenerative power cannot be 
 measured to those who have once caught 
 the focus of the lens. If you look toward 
 it from the dull end of the kaleidoscope, 
 you will see only a handful of colored beads. 
 Put your eye on the right line, and you 
 cannot shuffle them or jostle them from the 
 most serene and exquisite purpose and 
 order. 
 
 I do not expect the world will be con 
 verted to the enthusiasm that requires so 
 much preparation to receive, or that there 
 will ever be a popular deference to, Emer 
 son s mode and perspective. I know 
 how much easier it is to toy with and 
 enjoy the colored surfaces of things than 
 to explore the higher altitudes, or pene 
 trate into the abysmal depths. " Men," says 
 Bacon, " prefer to the diamond the deeper- 
 
75 
 
 colored gems." The telling objects to the 
 majority are the transparent ones, and 
 the average reader, only aroused languidly, 
 cares for nothing but that note which 
 
 " Rings like a tinkling pebble down a tinkling 
 path." 
 
 Whoever chooses to reflect sees there is 
 an essence of poetry which none of the 
 definitions perfectly define. That dainty 
 genius, Joubert, who writes as if Ariel had 
 turned critic, says : " The poet must be not 
 only the Phidias and the Daedalus of his 
 verses ; he must also be the Prometheus : 
 with form and movement he must also give 
 them life." Accosting the perplexing prob 
 lem that has come down to us from the 
 time of Aristotle, he puts himself among 
 the questioners on this theme. Asking 
 " What is poetry ? " he replies : " At this 
 moment I cannot say. But I maintain 
 
7 6 
 
 that, in words used by the true poet, there 
 is found for the eyes a certain phosphor 
 ous, for the taste a certain nectar, for the 
 attention an ambrosia not found in them 
 when used by any one else." Was there 
 ever any one to whom this description 
 applies better than it does to Emerson ? 
 
 Is there any one now living is there 
 any old Greek master among the dead 
 who ever spoke with more majestic or 
 sonorous, more strident, more enchanting 
 or more appealing emphasis, than the one 
 we have dared to extol ? Where shall we 
 find the fountain of beauty, if his words 
 are not bathed in it ? Where the sea of 
 thought, or the sky of imagination, if his 
 pinions have not touched them ? 
 
 One profound New England scholar, 
 widely versed in various literatures, and 
 himself a poet, has very lately said: "I 
 place Emerson at the head of the lyric 
 poets of America. In this judgment I 
 
77 
 
 anticipate wide dissent." But he explains, 
 after going so far, that he does not so 
 much refer to his poetic art, in which he 
 recognizes limitations, as to his " utter 
 spontaneity. * * More than any one 
 of his contemporaries, his poems for the 
 most part are inspirations. They are not 
 made, but given; they come of them 
 selves." He speaks of them as "bursting 
 from the soul with an irrepressible neces 
 sity of utterance sometimes with a rush 
 that defies the shaping intellect." It has 
 been noted by more than one that he 
 has written lines that are now as well es 
 tablished as those we quote from Shakes 
 peare. Take, as a ready instance : 
 
 He builded better than he knew ; 
 or that line from another poem: 
 
 And fired the shot heard round the world; 
 
 or, 
 
 "The silent organ loudest chants 
 The master s requiem." 
 
78 
 
 Nature, tremulous with mind, and not 
 a soulless mechanism, is the great affirma 
 tion which runs not only through Emer 
 son s poetry, but through all that he writes. 
 To illustrate this, he commands every re 
 source and makes even the denials of 
 science fortify the truth on which the uni 
 verse is suspended. It used to be said 
 of Wendell Phillips s speeches that they 
 always give you the latest news; the 
 evening lecture would be as fresh as the 
 evening paper; and, after a similar sort, 
 you can discern the high-water mark 
 the lapse of the last wave of science in 
 Emerson s periods. Mr. W. T. Harris 
 says that, "no other poet since Shakes 
 peare has been endowed with so clear 
 and sustained insight into the transcend 
 ency of mind in the visible world." 
 
 Of his employment of other factors than 
 rhythm and rhyme in the formation of his 
 
79 
 
 poems, the same writer gives a felicitous 
 hint. " Emerson," he says, " very often 
 uses the Hebrew device of rhyme of thought 
 in his poetry, though not omitting if 
 sometimes slighting the external rhyme 
 and rhythm." And this is illustrated in the 
 following passage from his poem of "The 
 Sphinx " : 
 
 The fate of the man-child; 
 
 The meaning of man; 
 Known fruit of the unknown; 
 
 Daedalian plan ; 
 Out of sleeping a waking, 
 
 Out of waking a sleep; 
 Life death overtaking; 
 
 Deep underneath deep. 
 
 To the criticism of poetry Emerson 
 brings a deep insight an interior vision. 
 It is the spirit, not the mold, which first 
 arrests him. To a genuine inspiration he 
 can allow great latitude of manner and 
 form. In detecting faults, or marking 
 
8o 
 
 verbal felicities, while looking mainly be 
 yond these, none is better than he. His 
 emphasis on afhrmatives sometimes made 
 him benignant where others would be 
 severe ; but what he saw was certainly 
 there. His opinion of poetry, it is said, 
 had, with his most noted friends, famous 
 themselves as poets, a high judicial value. 
 If the world did not heed his work, they, at 
 least, listened to his large and minute 
 criticism as they listened to no other. 
 Whatever the press might declare, or public 
 silence and neglect imply, no great poet 
 doubts that he stands monumentally high 
 in his guild. 
 
 If there is a seeming exception to this 
 statement in one young English poet s out 
 break when piqued and offended at a little 
 plain speaking by Emerson over his froth- 
 fully frenetic and sensual fancies, it finds a 
 reason in that fact. And yet I do not 
 
8i 
 
 doubt that this writer of marvelous gifts in 
 the lyric direction sees and esteems as 
 his bitter retort does not exclude, and 
 would imply Emerson s authority and 
 power. In this coupling with Emerson s a 
 name representing such contrast in style, 
 one who thinks of them both can see how 
 Olympian calmness and restraint compare 
 with their extreme counterpart in the field 
 of poetical expression. No doubt Emerson s 
 "Parnassus" revealed in him, to some 
 minds, unexpected tastes and predilections, 
 but it justifies, on careful study, catholicity 
 of feeling and keen discernment. 
 
 Mr. Curtis says that Emerson s words, 
 long ago applied to Channing s poetry in 
 The Dial, could be easily transformed to 
 describe his own. " It is of such extreme 
 beauty that we do not remember anything 
 more perfect of its kind." Enough casual 
 and confirmative utterances of similar pur- 
 
82 
 
 port could be picked up to excuse the lone- 
 someness of my plea, if it were worth while, 
 or if I cared to occupy much further space 
 on this subject. Mr. Stedman and Mr. 
 Whipple, I believe, are each contemplating 
 considerable essays on Emerson s poetry; 
 while Mr. G. W. Cooke, who has nearly 
 ready* a " A Study of Emerson," will devote 
 a chapter, at least, to its significance and 
 high quality. In a few years, let us hope 
 for, I take it, these are to be favorable 
 voices the neglect which has hitherto 
 been conspicuous will begin to be repaired. 
 It has been remarked that certain preg 
 nant lines from Emerson s poem of " The 
 Problem " have been embalmed in West 
 minster Abbey; and those who have read 
 
 * This book has now appeared under the title, 
 " Ralph Waldo Emerson : His Life, Writings, and 
 Philosophy," and is one of the best tributes that 
 has ever been paid to Emerson s genius and 
 memory. 
 
the one and seen the other cannot well 
 question the felicity of the combination. 
 But we may be permitted to wonder which 
 is bolder, the architecture of the poet, or 
 that of the cathedral. 
 
 I am impressed with the necessity, in 
 speaking of Emerson s poetry, of being in 
 a measure paradoxical. If I say the flow 
 ing forms of Gothic architecture that 
 flower of Nature which you find in 
 this famous abbey symbolize this form of 
 verse, I am compelled also to note in 
 innumerable places its kinship to Doric 
 severity that flower of Art. Who is it 
 that finds an absence of art (an absence 
 of anything, in fact, but commonplace, 
 which is notably absent) in such lines as 
 these ? 
 
 O tenderly the haughty day 
 Fills his blue urn with fire; 
 
 One morn is in the mighty heaven, 
 And one in our desire. 
 
 Fourth of July Ode. 
 
8 4 
 
 Guest of million painted forms, 
 Which in turn thy glory warms ! 
 The frailest leaf, the mossy bark, 
 The acorn s cup, the rain-drop s arc, 
 The swinging spider s silver line, 
 The ruby of the drop of wine, 
 The shining pebble of the pond, 
 Thou inscribes! with a bond 
 In thy momentary play, 
 Would bankrupt Nature to repay. 
 Ode to Bea 
 
 O ostrich-like forgetfulness ! 
 O loss of larger in the less ! 
 Was there no star that could be sent, 
 No watcher in the firmament, 
 No angel from the countless host 
 That loiters round the crystal coast, 
 Could stoop to heal that only child, 
 , Nature s sweet marvel undefiled, 
 And keep the blossom of the earth, 
 Which all her harvests were not worth ? 
 Threnody. 
 
 Need we ask for more transparency than 
 these lines afford? And is it not our 
 fault instead of the writer s if they are not 
 understood ? Those who wish for a mere 
 
85 
 
 poetical veneer, or for poetry that goes on 
 with fatal facility, need not, and will not, 
 turn to Emerson. 
 
 I have not sought, however, to hide 
 the fact that he has written a great deal 
 which is dark on the first, and, perhaps, 
 on the third, reading. Of his obscurer 
 verses, it must be observed that the theme 
 is habitually the highest. He strikes out 
 one broad synthesis after another in close 
 succession with bewildering prodigality. 
 They are hints rather than finished state 
 ments. The words chosen startle by their 
 deep suggestion. Their polarized vitality, 
 rich symbolism, and strong percussion 
 shock the mind, and celestial vistas, or un- 
 fathomed deeps, are opened. Who has ever 
 found a passage in all he has written which 
 does not repay, by its pith, verve, and soar 
 ing impulse, the study it provokes ? In the 
 poem of " Brahma " even, which became a 
 
86 
 
 butt of ridicule when it first appeared, the 
 author expressed some very definite, if 
 subtle, ideas ; so that the critics who laughed 
 must have seen, at a later day, that they 
 had merely advertised their ignorance of 
 the deeply poetical and significant struct 
 ure of the Hindu mythology. 
 
 The subtlety of his thought in these 
 graver instances has, too, its analogue in the 
 awfulness of life itself, which he describes 
 in a few mystical and wonderfully melodi 
 ous lines in the older form of " Merlin " : 
 
 " Subtle rhymes with ruin rife, 
 Murmur in the house of life, 
 Sung by the Sisters as they spin; 
 In perfect time and measure they 
 Build and unbuild our echoing clay, 
 As the two twilights of the day 
 Fold us music-drunken in." 
 
 But, to linger further with my theme, 
 would lead me too far. The whole mat 
 ter will be best concluded by borrowing 
 
8 7 
 
 Lowell s description of a dozen or more 
 years ago, which sets forth his repeated 
 experience in one of Emerson s lecture 
 audiences at Cambridge. 
 
 Those who have heard Emerson s lec 
 tures know that the original verses some 
 times distributed through them mingled 
 with the melody of the prose lent them 
 not a little of their highest charm; so 
 that what is true of the one will not 
 seem unfit to depict the other. Lowell 
 says : " I can never help applying to 
 Emerson what Ben Johnson said of Bacon : 
 There happened in my time one noble 
 speaker, who was full of gravity in his 
 speaking. His language was nobly cen 
 sorious. No man ever spake more neatly, 
 more pressly, more weightily, or suffered 
 less emptiness, less idleness in what he 
 uttered. No member of his speech but 
 consisted of his own graces. His hearers 
 
88 
 
 could not cough, or look aside from him, 
 without loss. He commanded where he 
 spoke ? Those who heard him while their 
 natures were yet plastic, and their mental 
 nerves trembled under the slightest breath 
 of diviner air, will never cease to feel and 
 say: 
 
 " Was never eye did see that face, 
 
 Was never ear did hear that tongue, 
 Was never mind did mind his grace, 
 That ever thought the travail long; 
 But eyes and ears and every thought 
 Were with his sweet perfections caught. " 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 THE late Mr. John A. Dorgan, a young writer 
 of rare promise, and the author of a book of 
 poems, called " Studies," wrote a very able essay, 
 as I remember it now, some eighteen years or more 
 ago, for the Boston Commonwealth, on Emerson s 
 poetry, with special reference to the changes made 
 in it. I have not been able to find this, or to recall 
 any part of it for consultation. But, if a vivid im 
 pression may be trusted, I am sure it is worth 
 reprinting. 
 
 On comparing the early edition of Emerson s 
 poems with the so-called blue-and-gold one of 1865, 
 which I have done, line for line, I find the most 
 numerous changes occur in the poems titled "Astrsea" 
 and " Monadnock." A bad typographical error de 
 serves pointing out in this blue-and-gold edition 
 the substitution of the word Like for Life, in the 
 seventh line of the second stanza, in the poem of 
 "The Sphinx." 
 
 But my reference here would be inexcusably 
 incomplete if I should forget to mention, as a doc 
 ument of interest in this connection, Mr. William 
 Sloane Kennedy s fine article on "The Discarded 
 Poems of Emerson." It appeared in the Literary 
 World si Oct. 7, 1882. 
 
 89 
 
AN 
 
 EMERSON CONCORDANCE. 
 
 Contributed by WILLIAM SLOANE KENNEDY to the ^ Literary 
 World" and used Jiere by special permission. 
 
 A PARTIAL INDEX TO 
 FAMILIAR PASSAGES IN HIS POEMS. 
 
 Page-references are to Selected Poems [Copyright, 1876, 
 Houghton, Mifflin & Co.]; for the convenience of those using 
 earlier editions, the name of the poem is given with each 
 reference. In making the index, the plan has been to select 
 from each line or paragraph the most striking and significant 
 word or words. Quite a number of poems that appeared 
 in the familiar brown-cloth editions were omitted by Mr. 
 Emerson in the final 1876 edition. He has also changed 
 many lines in the poems given in that edition. Our love 
 for him is so great that we hardly dare say, against his 
 wishes, that we hope every scrap of his poetry will be in 
 cluded in some complete edition, after the expiration of the 
 present copyright. But, certainly, many of the poems he 
 omitted are too good to be lost. 
 
 A CADEME. One in the A. S. of Nat., 
 \- p. 161. 
 
 ACORN S. The a. cup. Ode to Beauty, p. 81. 
 ADORNING. Itself with thoughts of thee a. 
 Ode to Beaiity, p. 83. 
 91 
 
9 2 
 
 . Sunny JE. sleeps./. D. and C. 
 Love, p. 108. 
 
 AFFIRMER. Thou grand a. of. Monadnock, 
 
 P- 153. 
 
 AGES. A. are thy days. Monadnock, p. 153. 
 AIR. Flowing azure a. Ode to Beauty , p. 83. 
 AISLES. And on my heart monastic a. 
 
 Problem, p. 14. 
 ALBEIT. Unknown, a. lying near. /. D. and 
 
 C. Love, p. 103. 
 ALL. A. are needed by each one. Each and 
 
 All, p. 12. 
 ANDES. Smite A. into dust. Sea-Shore, p. 
 
 113- 
 APPROACHING. Well I hear the a. feet. 
 
 Monadnock, p. 150. 
 
 ARAB. On a mound an A. lay. Hermione, 
 p. 94. 
 
 ARCHETYPES. In their a. endure./. D. and 
 
 C. Love, p. 1 08. 
 ARTFUL. A. thunder. Merlin, p. 114. 
 
 ASTONISHED. Seaman sails a./. D. andC. 
 
 Love, p. 104. 
 ASTRONOMY. Far-reaching concords of a. 
 
 Musketag., p. 166. 
 
93 
 
 ATOM. No a. worn. S. of Nat., p. 162. 
 Here was this a. in full breath 
 Hurling defiance at vast death. Titmouse -, 
 
 p. 63. 
 
 ATOMS. A. march in June. Monadnock, p. 
 149. 
 
 The journeying a. Sphinx, p. 8. 
 AUBURN-DELL. Dream the dream of A.-d. 
 
 May-Day, p. 47. 
 AVOID. When each the other shall a. /. D. 
 
 and C. Love, p. no. 
 AVON. One by A. stream. S. of Nat., p. 
 
 161. 
 Axis. He is the a. of the star. Woodnotes, 
 
 II., p. 140. 
 
 AZALEAS. A. flush the island floors. May- 
 Day, p. 48. 
 
 ALL. Over the lifeless b. Wealth, p. 
 170. 
 The shadow sits close to the flying b. 
 
 Woodnotes, II., p. 138. 
 
 BANKRUPT. Would b. nature to repay. 
 Ode to Beauty, p. 81. 
 
94 
 
 BARD. The kingly b. Merlin,^. 114. 
 BE. I rush to B. Nun s Aspiration, p. 185. 
 BEAD. String Monadnock like a b. Monad- 
 nock, p. 150. 
 
 BEAUTY. B. s not beautiful to me. Her- 
 mione, p. 94. 
 
 To die for b. Beauty, p. 178. 
 
 Carves the bow of b. there. Woodnotes, 
 
 II., p. 135. 
 B. is its own excuse for being. The Rho- 
 
 dora, p. 58. 
 BEE. As the b. through the garden ranges. 
 
 Woodnotes, II., p. 139. 
 BEFALL. Who shall tell what did b. Wealth, 
 
 p. 170. 
 
 BEFALLS. B. again what once befell. May- 
 Day, p. 47. 
 
 BEING. Firm ensign of the fatal b. Monad- 
 nock, p. 153. 
 
 Winds of remembering 
 Of the ancient b. blow. Bacchus, p. 118. 
 BELLY. Wine in b. of the grape. Bacchus, 
 
 p. 117. 
 
 BERYL. B. beam of the broken wave. 
 Beauty, p. 198. 
 
95 
 
 BEST. The fiend that man harries 
 Is love of the b. Sphinx ; p. 9. 
 BIDES. Who b. at home. Fate, p. 89. 
 BIND. B. the strength of Nature wild. 
 
 Wealth, p. 171. 
 BIRD. B. trims her to the gale. Terminus, 
 
 p. 187. 
 
 BIRDS. The punctual \>. Musketaq., p. 166. 
 O b. your perfect virtues bring. May- 
 Day, p. 53. 
 Named without a gun. Forbearance, 
 
 P- 77- 
 BLOOD. Wildb. start. Merlin, p. 114. 
 
 Drop of manly b. Friendship, p. 177. 
 B. of the world. Bacchus, p. 117. 
 BLUEBIRD. Musketaq., p. 164. 
 
 Myb. s note. May-Day, p. 47. 
 
 BOAT. This round sky-cleaving b. Monad- 
 nock, p. 150. 
 
 BOND. Thou inscribest with a b. Ode to 
 Beauty, p. 81. 
 
 BOWERS. What recks such Traveler if the b. 
 Woodnotes, II., p. 140. 
 
 BOY. B. with his games undaunted. World- 
 Soul, p. 24. 
 
9 6 
 
 BRAWLERS. Heed not what the b. say. 
 
 Saadi, p. 37. 
 
 BREAD. Than live for b. Beauty, p. 178. 
 BREEZE. As blows the b. Merlin, p. 114. 
 BRIDGE. The ruined b. Cone. Fight, p. 202. 
 B. that arched the flood. Cone. Fight, 
 
 p. 202. 
 BUILDED. He b. better than he knew. The 
 
 Problem, p. 14. 
 BULLET. B. of the earth. Monadnock, p. 
 
 152. 
 BURDENS. B. of the Bible old. The Problem, 
 
 p. 14. 
 BUTLER. Drug the cup, thou b. sweet. 
 
 May -Day, p. 48. 
 
 /CALENDAR. Into c. months and days. 
 Uriel, p. 19. 
 
 CANISTER. God fills the scrip and c. Wood- 
 notes, II., p. 130. 
 
 CANTICLES. The c. of love and woe. Prob 
 lem, p. 14. 
 
 CAPTAIN. Who is the c. he knows not. 
 Monadnock, p. 152. 
 
97 
 
 CARNIVAL. Gods kept c. S. of Nat., p. 160. 
 
 CASCADES. My leaves and my c. S. of Nat. , 
 p. 161. 
 
 CENTURIES. Thou meetest him by c. Wood- 
 notes, II., p. 140. 
 
 Gathering along the c. S. of Nat. , p. 
 "59; 
 
 CHARMED. Every wave is c. Terminus, p. 
 187. 
 
 CHASTE-GLOWING. C.-g. underneath their 
 lids. To Eva, p. 92. 
 
 CHIPS. Who builds yet makes no c. Monad- 
 nock, p. 149. 
 
 CHOIR. Mighty c. descends. 7. D. and C 
 Love, p. 104. 
 
 CHURCH. I like a c.Tke Problem, p. 16. 
 
 CHURCHMAN. That cowled c. be. The Prob 
 lem, p. 14. 
 
 CIPHER. We cannot read the c. World-Soul, 
 p. 25. 
 
 CIRCLES. The c. of that sea are laws. 7. D. 
 and C. Love, p. 109. 
 
 CITIES. What if Trade sow c. World-Soul, 
 p. 26. 
 
 7 
 
9 8 
 
 CLERK. The spruce c. Monadnock, p. 151. 
 
 CLIMB. Aye c. for his rhyme. Merlin, p. 
 115. 
 
 CLUB-MOSS. Running over the c.-m. burrs. 
 Each and All, p. 13. 
 
 COCKLES. Like c. by the main. May-Day, 
 p. 47- 
 
 COINED. Or ever the wild time c. Uriel, p. 
 18. 
 
 COLUMBINE. In c. and clover-blow. May- 
 Day, p. 47- 
 
 C. with horn of honey. Humblebee, p. 60. 
 
 COMPASS. Toil could never c. it. Fate, p. 88. 
 CONQUEROR. Alike the c. silent sleeps. 
 
 Cone. Fight, p. 202. 
 CONSPIRACY. Works in close c. Ode to 
 
 Beauty, p. 82. 
 COOPED. C. in a ship he cannot steer. 
 
 Monadnock, p. 152. 
 CORAL. Building in the c. sea. S. of Nat., 
 
 p. 1 60. 
 CORSE. The glowing angel, the outcast c. 
 
 Woodnotes, II., p. 140. 
 COSSACKS. Right C. in their forages. /. D. 
 
 and C. Love, p. 98. 
 
99 
 
 COURIERS. C. come by squadrons. 6". of 
 Nat., p. 161. 
 
 COWARD. Amid these c. shapes. Monad- 
 nock, p. 153. 
 
 COWL. I like a church; I like a c.The 
 Problem, p. 14. 
 
 COWLED. C. portrait dear. The Problem, p. 
 16. 
 
 CRAMP. C. elf and saurian forms. S. of 
 Nat., p. 1 60. 
 
 CREATION. Ever fresh the broad c. Wood- 
 notes, II., p. 138. 
 
 CUP. Brims my little c. Dafs Ration, p. 
 167. 
 
 . D. plan. Sphinx, p. 7. 
 D^MON. Flickering D. film./. D. and 
 
 C. Love, p. 1 08. 
 
 The patient D. sits. World-Soul, p. 27. 
 
 DAIMON-SPHERE. The path to the d,-s. 7. 
 
 D. and C. Love, p. 103. 
 
 DAIMONS. The potent plain of d. spreads. 
 7. D. and C. Love, p. 103. 
 
100 
 
 DAUGHTERS. D. of Time. Days, p. 172. 
 DAY. Made one of d. S. of Nat., p. 161. 
 DAYS. The hypocritic d. Days, p. 172. 
 DEAD. Happier to be d. Beauty, p. 178. 
 
 DEEP. D., d. are loving eyes. /. D. and C. 
 
 Love, p. 107. 
 DELICATE. Ever by d. powers. S. of Nat., 
 
 p. 159. 
 DELUGE. Pour the d. still. S. of Nat., p. 
 
 159. 
 
 DENS. D. of passion. Beauty, p. 178. 
 DERVISHES. Like barefoot d. Days, p. 172. 
 
 DESPAIR. To master my d. Friendship, 
 
 p. 177. 
 DEW. Gives back the bending heavens in d. 
 
 S. of Nat., p. 162. 
 
 DOFFING. Too much of donning and d. 
 
 S. of Nat., p. 161. 
 
 DOME. Rounded Peter s d. Problem, p. 14. 
 DOUBT. Souls above d. Give All to Love, 
 
 p. 84. 
 DOUBTER. I am the d. and the doubt. 
 
 Brahma, p. 73. 
 
IOI 
 
 DREAD. D. power but dear. Ode to Beauty, 
 p. 83. 
 
 DROP. With one d. sheds form and feature. 
 Woodnotes, II., p. 139. 
 
 DRUGGED. D. my boy s cup. The Sphinx, 
 p. 9. 
 
 DUMB. D. in the pealing song. S. of Nat., 
 p. 159. 
 
 DUTY. D. whispers low, Thou must. Volun 
 taries, p. 211. 
 
 T^AGLES. Carries the z.Fate, p. 89. 
 *^ EARTH-SONG. When I heard the E.-s. 
 Hamatreya, p. 72. 
 
 ELECTRIC. E. thrills and ties of law. 
 Wealth, p. 171. 
 
 ENORMOUS. Through Heaven s e. year. 
 Wealth, p. 170. 
 
 ENSIGN. Firm e. of the fatal being. Monad- 
 nock, p. 153. 
 
 EROS. Strong E. struggling through. Beau 
 ty, p. 178. 
 
102 
 
 ESSENCE. He is the e. that inquires. Wood- 
 notes, II., p. 140. 
 
 Holy e. rolls. /. D. and C. Love, p. 108. 
 ETERNITY. Stars of e. Wood-notes, II., 
 
 P- 139- 
 
 Ask on thou clothed e. The Sphinx, 
 
 p. ii. 
 
 EVE. Obey the voice at e. Terminus, p. 187. 
 EYELESS. Plunges e. on forever. Monad- 
 nock, p. 152. 
 
 T^AITHFUL. Lowly f., banish fear. Ter- 
 
 JL minus, p. 187. 
 
 FANCY-FREE. Free be she, f.-f. Give All 
 
 to Love, p. 85. 
 FANNED. F. the dreams it never brought. 
 
 Woodnotes, II., p. 130. 
 FARM - FURROWED. F.-f., town-incrusted 
 
 sphere. Monadnock, p. 152. 
 FARMERS. Embattled f. Cone. Fight, p. 202. 
 FATE. This is he men miscall F. Worship, 
 
 p. 183. 
 FATHERS. Our f. built to God. Hymn, 
 
 p. 200. 
 
FELL. It f. in the ancient periods. Uriel, 
 
 p. 19. 
 
 FILLET. Under her solemn f. Days, p. 172. 
 FIRES. Fanning secret f. May-Day, p. 47. 
 
 FISHERS. F. and choppers and ploughmen. 
 
 Bost. Hymn, p. 204. 
 
 FIVE. Why Nature loves the number f. 
 Woodnotes, p. 126. 
 
 FLINGS. Into the fifth drop himself he f. 
 Woodnotes, II., p. 139. 
 
 FOAM-BELLS. F.-b. along Thought s causing 
 
 stream. World-Soul, p. 26. 
 FORGET. F. me if he can. Monadnock, 
 
 p. 152. 
 
 FORM. Gliding through the sea of f. Ode 
 to Beauty, p. 82. 
 
 In one only f. dissolves. /. D. and C. 
 , Love, p. 1 08. 
 
 FORTHRIGHT. F. my planets roll. S. of 
 
 Nat., p. 1 60. 
 FOUNT. By the shining f. of life. S. of 
 
 Nat., p. 159. 
 FOUNTAINS. Thou asketh in f. and in fires. 
 
 Woodnotes, II., p. 140. 
 
 F. of my hidden life. Friendship, p. 177. 
 Spouting f. cool the air. Art, p. 181. 
 
104 
 
 FREEDOM. Ere f. out of man. Ode, p. 208. 
 
 FUND. Sober on a f. of joy. Waldeinsam- 
 keit, p. 157. 
 
 GALAXY. In globe and g. Woodnotes, 
 II., p. 140. 
 
 GAME. Too long the g. is played. S. of 
 Nat., p. 161. 
 
 GARDEN. Waters that wash my g. side. 
 
 My Garden, p. 174. 
 GENERATIVE. Miracle of g. force. Muske- 
 
 taq., p. 1 66. 
 
 GEM. As the best g. upon her zone. The 
 Problem, p. 15. 
 
 GENESIS. Sweet the g. of things. Wood- 
 notes, II., p. 133. 
 
 GERMAN S. G. inward sight. Monadnock, 
 
 p. 151. 
 
 GIBBOUS. G. moon. S. of Nat., p. 159. 
 GIRDS. G. the world with bound and term. 
 
 I. D. and C. Love, p. 108. 
 
 GLORY. With firmer g. fell. S. of Nat., 
 p. 159. 
 
 GOBLIN. Musketaquit, a g. strong. Two 
 Rivers, p. 156. 
 
I0 5 
 
 GODS. Shadows flitting up and down. /. D. 
 and C. Love, p. 109. 
 
 Delight in g. World-Soul, p. 27. 
 
 Speak it firmly, these are g. 
 
 All are ghosts beside. Voluntaries, p. 
 213. 
 
 It whispers of the glorious g. World- 
 Soul, p. 25. 
 
 The strong g. pine for my abode. 
 Brahma, p. 73. 
 
 GODHEAD. From world to world the g. 
 changes. Woodnotes, II., p. 139. 
 
 GOOD-BYE. G.-b. proud world. [Not re 
 printed in the final (1876) edition.] 
 
 GRACE. So sweet to Seyd as only g. Beauty, 
 p. 178. 
 
 GRANDEUR. So nigh is g. to our dust. 
 Voluntaries, p. 211. 
 
 GRANITE. Through the g. seeming. Monad- 
 nock, p. 149. 
 
 GRASS. Poor g. shall plot and plan. Bac 
 chus, p. 1 1 8. 
 
 GREETING. Need is none of forms of g. 
 /. D. and C. Love, p. no. 
 
 GRIM. G., gray rounding. Monadnock, p. 
 152. 
 
io6 
 
 GROUND-PINE. G.-p. curled its pretty wreath. 
 
 Each and All, p. 13. 
 
 GULF. G. of space. S. of Nat., p. 159. 
 GYPSY. G. beauty blazes higher. Romany 
 Girl, p. 86. 
 
 HALF-GODS. Whenh.-g. go. Give All 
 to Love, p. 85. 
 
 HALTETH. H. never in one shape. Wood- 
 notes, II., p. 139. 
 HARBINGER. Rainbow smiles his h. S. of 
 
 Nat., p. 1 60. 
 
 HARP. Thy trivial h. Merlin,^. 114. 
 HEARKEN. H.! h.! if thou wouldst know. 
 
 Woodnotes, II., p. 133. 
 
 HEAT. Hither rolls the storm of h. May- 
 Day, p. 44- 
 
 So pours the deluge of the h. 
 
 Broad northward o er the land. May- 
 
 Day, p. 47- 
 What god is this imperial h. May- Day, 
 
 p. 45. 
 HEAVEN. Find me and turn thy back on H. 
 
 Brahma, p. 73. 
 
 Already H. with thee its lot has cast. 
 Sursum Corda, p. 79. 
 
io 7 
 
 HIGHER. H. far into the pure realm. /. D. 
 
 and C. Love, p. 108. 
 HOLY GHOST. One accent of the H. G. 
 
 The Problem, p. 16. 
 HONEY. Like fiery h. sucked from roses. 
 
 /. D. and C. Love, p. 99. 
 
 H. cloy. Waldeinsamkeit, p. 157. 
 
 HOST. Girds with one flame the countless h. 
 
 -The Problem, p. 15. 
 HOUR. Spirit strikes the h. Threnody, p. 
 
 197. 
 HOUSE. We love the venerable h. Hymn, 
 
 p. 200. 
 HURL. H. wrong-doers down. Worship, p. 
 
 183. 
 HYSON. One scent to h. Xenophanes, p. 163. 
 
 IDEAS. Divine I. below. Ode to Beauty, 
 p. 82. 
 
 IMAGE. Molded an i. S. of Nat., p. 161. 
 IMPROVISATION. A divine i. Woodnotes, 
 
 II., p. 138. 
 
 INN. I. where he lodges for a night. Wood- 
 notes, II., p. 140. 
 
io8 
 
 INSIGHT. To i. profounder. Sphinx, p. 10. 
 INUNDATION. I hear the i. sweet. Two 
 Rivers, p. 156. 
 
 JOVE. Walks in mask almighty J. ? May- 
 Day, p. 45 
 
 J. who deaf to prayers. Worship, p. 183. 
 JUD^AN. In a J. manger. 5. of Nat., p. 161. 
 JUSTICE. J. conquers evermore. Volunta 
 ries, p. 212. 
 
 See Voluntaries, p. 213. 
 For there s no sequestered grot, 
 Lone mountain tarn, or isle forgot, 
 But J. journeying in her sphere, 
 Daily stoops to harbor there. Astrtza, 
 P- 75- 
 
 KEEP. And always k. us so. Ode to 
 Beauty, p. 82. 
 
 KING. Conscious Law is k. of kings. Wood- 
 notes, II., p. 139. 
 KINGS. God said, I am tired of k. Bost. 
 
 Hymn, p. 203. 
 
 KITE. This treacherous k. Monadnock, p. 
 152. 
 
109 
 
 T AKE. Smote the 1. Beauty,^. 178. 
 
 *-* LAUGHTER. L. rich as woodland thun 
 der. Threnody, p. 197. 
 
 LAVISH. L., 1. promiser. Ode to Beauty, 
 p. 80. 
 
 LAYERS. Baked the 1. S. of Nat., p. 160. 
 
 LEGS. Among the 1. of his guardians tall. 
 
 Experience, p. 169. 
 LIBERTY. Found 1. true 1. Musketaq., p. 
 
 1 66. 
 LIGHT. Through L, through life. Two 
 
 Rivers. 
 LIKE. L. and unlike. Experience, p. 169. 
 
 LILIES. A bunch of fragrant 1. be. Wood- 
 notes, II., p. 140. 
 
 LION. Love laughs, and on a 1. rides. /. D. 
 and C. Love, p. 105. 
 
 LITANIES. L. of nations came. The Problem 
 p. 14. 
 
 LORDS. The dear dangerous 1. Musketaq., 
 p. 164. 
 
 L. of life. Experience, p. 169. 
 
 LORE. L. of colors and of sound. Musketaq., 
 p. 1 66. 
 
no 
 
 LOVE. Deep 1. lieth under 
 
 These pictures of time. Sphinx, p. 9. 
 
 LOVER. L. rooted stays. Friendship, p. 177. 
 Have I a 1. who is noble and free? The 
 
 Sphinx, p. 10. 
 
 Low. L. and mournful be the strain. Volun 
 taries, p. 209. 
 
 MAN-CHILD. Them.-c. glorious. 5. of 
 Nat, p. 1 60. 
 MAPLE- KEYS. The scarlet m.-k. betray. 
 
 May -Day, p. 44. 
 
 MAPLE-JUICE. Drain sweet m.-j. in vats. 
 Monadnock, p. 145. 
 
 MARL. Granite m. and shell. S. of Nat., p. 
 
 1 60. 
 MASK. Merry is only a m. of sad. Waldein- 
 
 samkeit, p. 157. 
 MASTER. The passive M. The Problem, p. 
 
 15- 
 MATTER. Build in m. home for mind. 
 
 Wealth, p. 170. 
 MEAN. It was not for the m. Give all to 
 
 Love, p. 84. 
 
Ill 
 
 MEANINGS. Their noble m. are their pawns. 
 
 /. D. and C. Love, p. no. 
 MELIORATING. M. stars. S. of Nat., p. 159. 
 MELODY. A m. born of m. Fate, p. 88. 
 
 MEMORIES. Smacks of m. far away. May- 
 Day, p. 42. 
 
 MERRY. M. is only a mask of sad. Waldein- 
 samkeit, p. 157. 
 
 METAMORPHOSIS. The rushing m. Wood- 
 notes, II., p. 133. 
 
 MILL-ROUND. M.-r. of our fate. Friendship, 
 p. 177. 
 
 MILLION-HANDED. The m.-h. painter pours. 
 May-Day, p. 47. 
 
 MIND. And his m. is the sky, 
 
 Than all it holds more deep, more high. 
 Woodnotes, II., p. 140. 
 
 MINE. M. are the night and morning. S. of 
 Nat., p. 159. 
 
 MINIATURE. In soft m. lies. Sphinx, p. 8. 
 MIRE. Leaves us in the m. World-Soul, p. 
 25. 
 
 MISERIES. Our insect m. Monadnock,^. 153. 
 Mix. M. the bowl again. S. of Nat. p. 162. 
 
112 
 
 MOAN. And joy and m. 
 
 Melt into one. /. D. and C. Love, p. 
 108. 
 
 MOANINGS. M. of the tropic sea. Volun 
 taries, p. 209. 
 
 MONADNOCK. She stood M. s head. The 
 
 Sphinx, p. ii. 
 MORN. Painting with m. Problem,]). 15. 
 
 MOURNFUL. M. be the strain. Voluntaries, 
 p. 209. 
 
 MUSIC. Who heard the starry m. Ode to 
 Beauty, p. 82. 
 
 M. pours on mortals. World-Soul, p. 25. 
 
 MUSKETAQUIT. Thy summer voice, M. 
 Two Rivers, p. 156. 
 
 NAIL. N. the wild-star to its track. 
 Threnody, p. 198. 
 
 NAPHTHA. Flowed with n. fiery sweet. /. D. 
 and C. Love, p. 107. 
 
 NATURE. Him by the hand dear N. took. 
 Experience, p. 169. 
 
 Out from the heart of n. rolled. The 
 
 Problem, p. 14. 
 
 Universal N. through. Xenophanes, p. 
 163- 
 
NEW HAMPSHIRE. To the uplands of N. H. 
 World-Soul, p. 24. 
 
 NEVADA. N. coin thy golden crags. Bost. 
 Hymn, p. 206. 
 
 NILE. One over against the mouths of N. 
 S. of Nat., p. 161. 
 
 NOBILITY. N. more nobly to repay. For 
 bearance, p. 77. 
 
 NOBLE. I will have never a n. Bost. Hymn, 
 p. 204. 
 
 NYMPHS. Shun him, n., on the fleet horses ! 
 /. D. and C. Love, p. 100. 
 
 LD. Time to be o. Terminus, p. 186. 
 OLYMPIAN. O. bards who sung 
 Divine Ideas below. Ode to Beauty, p. 82. 
 
 OMENS. The youth reads o. May-Day, p. 
 42. 
 
 OMNIPRESENT. O. without name. Experi 
 ence, p. 169. 
 
 ONWARD. Right o. drive unharmed. Termi 
 nus, p. 187. 
 
 OPAL-COLORED. O.-c. days. May-Day, p. 
 
 55- 
 8 
 
OPTION. By fate, not o. Xenophanes, p. 
 163. 
 
 OPULENT. O. soul, mingled from the gener 
 ous whole. Ode to Beauty, p. 81. 
 
 ORCHIS. Where in far fields the o. grew. 
 Woodnotes, I., p. 127. 
 
 ORGAN. The silent o. loudest chants. Dirge, 
 p. 189. 
 
 PADDLE. Or dip thy p. in the lake. 
 Woodnotes, II., p. 135. 
 
 P^EAN. Aloft, abroad the p. swells. Wood- 
 notes, II., p. 133. 
 
 PALLID. Thousand p. towns. May-Day, p. 
 47- 
 
 PAN. Onward and on, the eternal P. Wood- 
 notes, II., p. 139. 
 
 PARADISE. The point is P. where their glances 
 meet. /. D. and C. Love, p. 107. 
 
 PAROQUET. An infinite p. , Repeats one note. 
 Xenophanes, p. 163. 
 
 PARTHENON. Earth proudly wears the P. 
 
 The Problem, p. 15. 
 PAST. P., Present, Future shoot. /. D. and 
 
 C. Love, p. 1 08. 
 
PEBBLE. Shining p. of the pond. Ode to 
 Beauty, p. 81. 
 
 PEBBLES. Flung in p. well to hear. Beauty, 
 p. 178. 
 
 PENTECOST. And ever the fiery P.T/ie Prob 
 lem, p. 14. 
 
 PEREMPTORY. Free, p., clear. Merlin, p. 
 114. 
 
 PERMANENCE. Type of p. Monadnock, p. 
 153- 
 
 PIANO. Tinkle of p. strings. Merlin, p. 114. 
 
 PICTURE. All was p. as he passed. Humble- 
 bee, p. 60. 
 
 PICTURES. These p. of time. The Sphinx, 
 p. 9. 
 
 PINE. I that to-day am a p. Woodnotes, II., 
 
 P- 139- 
 PINE-TREE. So waved the p.-t. through my 
 
 thought. Woodnotes, II., p. 130. 
 PITS. P. of woe. Beauty, p. 178. 
 P. of air. S. of Nat., p. 159. 
 PLAIN-DEALING. P.-d. nature gave. Mus- 
 
 ketaq., p. 166. 
 
 PLUMULE. Fled the last p. of the dark. 
 Monadnock, p. 151. 
 
n6 
 
 POLES. By their animate p. Sphinx, p. 8. 
 POOR. The outrage of the p. Bost. Hymn, 
 p. 203. 
 
 POUNDING. With my hammer p. Sea-Shore, 
 p. 113. 
 
 POWER S. Drops from P. redundant horn. 
 
 May-Day, p. 45. 
 
 Their too much p. S. of Nat., p. 160. 
 PRAYERS. Deaf to p. Worship, p. 183. 
 PRIG. Little p. Fable, p. 155. 
 PRIME. Obeyed at p. Terminus, p. 187. 
 PULSE. At rich men s tables eaten bread and 
 
 p. Forbearance, p. 77. 
 
 PUZZLED. With a p. look. Experience, p. 
 169. 
 
 PYRAMIDS. Morning opes with haste her lids, 
 To gaze upon the p. The Problem, p. 15. 
 
 RAIN. And ages drop in it like r. Two 
 Rivers, p. 150. 
 
 RAINDROP S. R. s a. Ode to Beauty, p. 81. 
 RANSOM. Pay r. to the owner. Bost. Hymn, 
 p. 206. 
 
 RAY. No r. is dimmed. S. of Nat., p. 162. 
 
RECOUNT. R. the numbers well. Ode to 
 Beauty, p. 82. 
 
 RECUT. R. the aged prints. Bacchus, p. 
 119. 
 
 RED RIGHT ARM. Voluntaries, p. 212. 
 
 REDRESS. R. the eternal scales. Volunta 
 ries, p. 213. 
 
 REEF. R. the sail. Terminus, p. 187. 
 REQUIEM. The master s r. Dirge, p. 189. 
 
 REVOLVES. Visibly r. /. D. and C. Love, 
 p. 108. 
 
 RHODORA. The fresh r. in the woods. Rho- 
 dora, p. 58. 
 
 RIGHTS. Eternal R., Victors over daily 
 wrongs. Voluntaries, p. 213. 
 
 RlMS. R. the running silver sheet. May- 
 Day, p. 47. 
 
 RINGS. A subtle chain of countless r. May- 
 Day, p. 42. 
 
 RIPPLES. R. in rhymes the oar forsake. 
 Woodnotes, II., p. 135. 
 
 RIVAL. Why thou wert there, O r. of the 
 rose. The Rhodora, p. 58. 
 
 RIVER- GRAPES. A quest of r.-g. Musketaq., 
 p. 166. 
 
n8 
 
 ROAD. Love delights to build a r. I. D. 
 and C. Love, p. 105. 
 
 ROBE. R. of snow. S. of Nat., p. 161. 
 
 ROMANCE. Grace and glimmer of r. Art, 
 p. 181. 
 
 ROSE. Speaks all languages the r. May- 
 Day, p. 43- 
 
 Through thee the r. Friendship, p. 177. 
 Fresh r. on yonder thorn. S. of Nat., 
 p. 162. 
 
 ROUNDING. Grim, gray r. Monadnock, p. 
 152. 
 
 ROUTINE. Smug r. Mithridates, p. 33. 
 
 RUDDER. Man the r. Terminus, p. 187. 
 
 RUDDY. R. drop of manly blood. Friend 
 ship, p. 177- 
 
 SAILING. S. through stars with all their 
 history. Monadnock, p. 150. 
 SALVE. S. my worst wounds. Musketaq., 
 
 p. 1 66. 
 SANDS. S. whereof I m made. Ode to Beauty, 
 
 p. 81. 
 SANNUP. Musketaq., p. 165. 
 
SCORNFUL. And his eye is s., 
 
 Threatening, and young. Fate, p. 89. 
 SCOWL. I s. on him with my cloud. Monad- 
 nock, p. 152. 
 SCROLL. Rock and fire the s. S. of Nat., p. 
 
 160. 
 SEA-SAND. And one of the salt s.-s. S. of 
 
 Nat., p. 161. 
 SECRET-SIGHT. As if by s.-s. he knew. 
 
 Woodnotes, I., p. 127. 
 SEER. Forests. Woodnotes, I., p. 127. 
 SEEMED. It seemed that Nature could not 
 
 raise. Woodnotes, I., p. 127. 
 SEEMING-SOLID. S. - s walls of use. Bacchus, 
 
 p. 118. 
 SEETHE. S., Fate! the ancient elements. 
 
 S. of Nat., p. 162. 
 SERVETH. He that feeds men s. few. I. D. 
 
 and C. Love, p. 1 1 1. 
 SEVEN. Pine in vain the sacred S. Brahma, 
 
 P- 73- 
 SHAMS. I tire of s., I rush to Be. Nun s 
 
 Aspiration, p. 185. 
 SHARD. Of s. and flint makes pebbles gay. 
 
 Two Rivers, p. 156. 
 
120 
 
 SHEEP. As s. go feeding in the waste. Wood- 
 notes, II., p. 139. 
 
 SHELL. Masters of the s. Ode to Beauty, p. 
 82. 
 
 SHUDDERED. Cold s. the sphere. Sphinx, 
 p. 9. 
 
 SILVER. S. to s. creep and wind. /. D. and 
 
 C. Love, p. 109. 
 
 S. hills of heaven. Bacchus, p. 117. 
 SIN. S. piles the loaded board. Woodnotes, 
 
 II., p. 130. 
 
 SINCERITY. Wrought in a sad s. Problem, 
 p. 14. 
 
 SKY. Through thee alone the s. is arched. 
 Friendship, p. 177. 
 
 SLAVE. The s. is owner, and ever was. Bost. 
 Hymn, p. 206. 
 
 SLAYER. If the red s. think he slays. 
 Brahma, p. 73. 
 
 SLIME. Flood s subsiding s. Woodnotes, II., 
 
 P- 133- 
 SLOWSURE. S. Britain s secular might 
 
 Monadnock, p. 151. 
 
 SLUMBER. In s. I am strong. S. of Nat, 
 p. 159. 
 
121 
 
 SOBER. S. on a fund of joy. Waldeinsamkeit, 
 p. 157. 
 
 SOLAR. Secrets of the s. track. Merlin, p. 
 
 114. 
 
 I bide in the s. glory. S. of Nat., p. 159. 
 SPADE. All my hurts my garden s. can heal. 
 
 Musketaq., p. 166. 
 
 SPARKLE. He is the s. of the spar. Wood- 
 notes, II., p. 140. 
 
 SPELLS. The world is the ring of his s. 
 Woodnotes, II., p. 139. 
 
 SPENDING. I hear the s. of the stream. Two 
 
 Rivers, p. 156. 
 
 SPENT. S. and aged things. S. of Nat., p. 
 1 60. 
 
 SPHINX. Uprose the merry s. Sphinx, p. 11. 
 SPIDERS. Swinging s. silver line. Ode to 
 Beauty, p. 81. 
 
 SPILLING. S. over the mountain- chains. 
 May-Day, p. 47. 
 
 SPIRES. Through all the s. of form. May- 
 Day, p. 42. 
 
 SPORTIVE. S. sun. S. of Nat., p. 159. 
 SPRING. Daughter of Heaven and Earth, coy 
 S. May-Day, p. 41. 
 
122 
 
 SPRUCE. Pants up hither the s. clerk. 
 
 Monadnock, p. 151. 
 STAFF. Wave thy s. in air. Woodnotes, p. 
 
 135- 
 
 STAINLESS. S. soldier on the walls. Volun 
 taries, p. 212. 
 STAR-DUST. S.-d. and star pilgrimages. 
 
 Woodnotes, II., p. 133. 
 STAR-FORM. Why the s.-f. she repeats. 
 
 Woodnotes, p. 127. 
 STARS. Fetch her s. to deck her hair. 71? 
 
 Rhea, p. 22. 
 STREAM. Dark s. that seaward creeps. Cone. 
 
 Fight, p. 202. 
 
 The s. I love unbounded goes. Two Riv 
 ers, p. 156. 
 SUBSTANCES. S. at base divided. 7. D. and 
 
 C. Love, p. 1 08. 
 
 SUCCESSION. S. swift. Experience, p. 169. 
 SUCCORY. S. to match the sky. Humblebee, 
 
 p. 60. 
 SUN. Will take the s. out of the skies. Ode, 
 
 p. 208. 
 
 The s. himself shines heartily. World- 
 Soul, p. 26. 
 
123 
 
 SUN-BAKED. Singing in the s.-b square. 
 Art, p. 181. 
 
 SUNBURNT. S. world a man shall breed. 
 S. of Nat., p. 162. 
 
 SUN-PATH. S.-p. in thy worth. Friendship, 
 p. 177. 
 
 SUPERSOLAR. Sparks of the s. blaze. Mer 
 lin, p. 114. 
 
 SURFACE. S. and Dream. Experience, p. 
 169. 
 
 SURGE. S. of summer s beauty. Musketaq, , 
 p. 164. 
 
 SURGING. S. sea outweighs. Friendship, p. 
 177. 
 
 SURPRISE. Stair-way of s. Merlin, p. 115. 
 
 SURVEYORS. Time and Thought were my s. 
 S. of Nat., p. 160. 
 
 SWATHED. S. their too much power. S. of 
 Nat., p. 1 60. 
 
 SWORD. Masters the s. Fate, p. 89. 
 
 SYNOD. Airy s. bends. /. D. and C. Love, 
 p. 103. 
 
124 
 
 Counted my t. S. of Nat., p. 
 A 159. 
 
 TAP-ROOTS. T.-r. reaching through under 
 the Andes. Bacchus, p. 117. 
 
 TAYLOR. T., the Shakespeare of divines. 
 The Problem, p. 16. 
 
 TEEM. T. with unwonted thoughts. /. D. 
 and C. Love, p. 103. 
 
 TENDENCY. T. through endless ages. Wood- 
 notes, II., p. 133. 
 
 TENDERLY. T. the haughty day. Ode, p. 
 207. 
 
 TENEMENTS. Innumerable t. of beauty. 
 
 Musketaq., p. 166. 
 
 TENSE. Affirmer of the present t. Monad- 
 nock, p. 153. 
 
 THANKS. T. to the morning light. World- 
 Soul, p. 24. 
 THATCH. T. with towns the prairie broad. 
 
 World-Soul, p. 26. 
 
 THOUGHT S. T. perilous, whirling pool. 
 Threnody, p. 197. 
 Out of T. interior sphere. The Problem, 
 
 p. 15. 
 T. causing stream. World-Soul, p. 26. 
 
I2 5 
 
 THREADING. T. dark ways, arriving late. 
 Worship, p. 183. 
 
 THROB. This mound shall t. Monadnock, 
 p. 150. 
 
 TIDE. Time and t. forever run. S. of Nat., 
 p. 161. 
 
 TINTS. Refresh the faded t. Bacchus, p. 
 119. 
 
 TIRE. T. of globes and races. S. of Nat., 
 p. 161. 
 
 TORRENT. Rest on the pitch of the t. S. of 
 Nat., p. 159. 
 
 TORRENTS. Wine that is shed 
 Like the t. of the sun 
 Up the horizon walls. Bacchus, p. 118. 
 TOWN-SPRINKLED. T.-s. lands that be. 
 Monadnock, p. 150. 
 
 TRAILS. To hunt upon their shining t. 
 Forerunners, p. 68. 
 
 TRANSPARENCY. He hides in pure t. Wood- 
 notes, II., p. 140. 
 
 TRAVAIL. T. in pain for him. S. of Nat., 
 p. 161. 
 
 TRIBES. T. my house can fill. S. of Nat., 
 p. 159. 
 
126 
 
 TROUBADOUR. Comes that cheerful T. 
 
 Monadnock, p. 150. 
 TRUE. He serves all who dares to be t. /. 
 
 D. and C. Love, p. in. 
 TUMBLING. T. steep in the uncontinented 
 
 deep. Monadnock, p. 152. 
 TUNE. Nature beats in perfect t. Woodnotes, 
 
 II., p. 135. 
 TWICE. T. I have molded an image. S. of 
 
 Nat., p. 161. 
 
 T TNCONTINENTED. U. deep.Monad- 
 U nock, p. 152. 
 UNIVERSE. Beam to the bounds of the u. 
 
 Beauty, p. 178. 
 UNKNOWN. Known fruit of the u. Sphinx, 
 
 p. 7- 
 UNMAKE. U. me quite. Ode to Beauty, p. 
 
 81. 
 UNTAUGHT STRAIN. You must add the u. s. 
 
 -Fate, p. 88. 
 
 URN. Fills his blue u. with fire. Ode, p. 207. 
 USE. U. and surprise. Experience, p. 169. 
 
I2 7 
 
 T TAN. On thy broad mystic v. May-Day, 
 * p. 55- 
 
 VAULT. This v. which glows immense. 
 Woodnotes, II., p. 140. 
 
 VEGETABLE GOLD. Guy, p. 91. 
 
 VICTIM. V. lying low. Voluntaries, p. 212. 
 
 VOICES. Through a thousand v. Sphinx, 
 p. ii. 
 
 1TTEB. Play not in Nature s lawful w. 
 V V My Garden, p. 174. 
 
 WHEEL. In a region where the w. /. D. 
 
 and C. Love, p. 108. 
 WHEELS. W. which whirl the sun. S. of 
 
 Nat., p. 161. 
 
 WHIRL. W. the glowing wheels. S. of Nat., 
 
 p. 162. 
 
 WHOLE. The linked purpose of the w. 
 Musketaq., p. 166. 
 
 I yielded myself to the perfect w. Each 
 
 and All, p. 13. 
 
 WlNGS. I am the w. Brahma, p. 73. 
 WINE. Pouring of his power the w. Wood- 
 notes, II., p. 139. 
 
128 
 
 WOODGODS. The partial w. Musketaq., p. 
 
 164. 
 WOOD-ROSE. Loved the w.-r. and left it on 
 
 its stalk. Forbearance, p. 77. 
 
 WOODS. W. at heart are glad. Waldein- 
 
 samkeit, p. 157. 
 WORKETH. W. high and wise. Ode, p. 208. 
 
 WORLD. W. rolls round, mistrust it not. 
 
 May-Day, p. 47. 
 
 WORM. Starred eternal w. /. D. and C. 
 Love, p. 1 08. 
 
 Striving to be man, the w. May -Day, p. 
 
 42. 
 
 WORSE. Alike to him the better, the w. 
 Woodnotes, II., p. 140. 
 
 WREATH. W. shall nothing miss. S. of 
 
 Nat, p. 159. 
 WRITE. W. the past in characters. S. of 
 
 Nat., p. 1 60. 
 
 A^AWNS. Y. the pit of the Dragon. 
 * Sphinx, p. 9. 
 YELLOW - BREECHED. Y.-b. philosopher. 
 
 Humblebee, p. 60. 
 YOUNG. Always find us y. Ode to Beauty, 
 
 p. 82. 
 
I2 9 
 
 YOUTH. Y. replies, I can. Voluntaries, p. 
 211. 
 
 7 GDI AC. On the half-climbed i.Thren- 
 *~* ody, p. 198. 
 
 ZONES. Of all the z. and countless days. 5. 
 of Nat. , p. 162. 
 
EMERSON 
 AS A MAGAZINE TOPIC. 
 
 /r T N HE following list of magazine and peri- 
 -* odical essays upon Emerson was for 
 the most part contributed to the Chicago 
 Dial, by Mr. Poole, from his new "Index to 
 Periodical Literature," and we have permis 
 sion to use it here. But we have found it 
 necessary to append a number of recent titles, 
 to bring the list down to our present date : 
 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo (R. Buchanan), Broadway, 
 2: 223. (J. Burroughs) Galaxy, 21: 254,543. 
 (D. M. Colton) Continental Monthly, i : 
 49. (G. Gilfillan) Tait s Magazine, n. s., 15: 
 17. Same article, Living Age, 16: 97. (J. 
 O Connor) Catholic World, 27 : 90. (G. Pren 
 tice) Methodist Quarterly, 24: 357. Dublin 
 Review, 26: 152. North British Review, 47: 
 
132 
 
 319- Westminster Review, 33 : 345. Black- 
 wood, 62: 643. (F. H. Underwood) North 
 American Review, 130: 479. (B. Herford) 
 Dial (Ch.), 2: 114. 
 
 Address, July, 1838. Boston Quarterly, i : 
 
 500. 
 
 Address on Forefathers Day, 1870. (I. N. 
 
 Tarbox) New Englander, 30 : 175. 
 
 and his writings (G. Barmby). Howitt s Jour 
 nal^: 315. Christian Review, 26 : 640. 
 
 and History. Southern Literary Messenger, 
 
 18: 249. 
 
 and Landor. Living Age, 52 : 371. 
 
 and the Pantheists (H. Hemming). New Do 
 minion, 8: 65. 
 
 and Transcendentalism. American Whig Re 
 view, I : 233. See Transcendentalism. 
 
 and Spencer and Martineau. (W. R. Alger) 
 
 Christian Examiner, 84 : 257. 
 
 Conduct of Life. (N. Porter) New Englander, 
 
 19: 496. Eclectic Review, 46 : 365. 
 
 Culture. Fraser, 78: I. Same art., Living 
 
 Age, 98 : 358. 
 
 English Traits. See England. 
 
 Essays. Democratic Review, 16: 589. Eclec 
 tic Magazine, 18: 546. Living Age, 4: 139; 
 23: 344. (C. C. Felton) Christian Examiner, 
 3 o: 253. Eclectic Review, 76 : 667. Boston 
 Quarterly, 4 : 391. Biblical Review, 1 : 148. 
 
133 
 
 Prospective Review, 1 : 232. Tait s Magazine 
 n. s., 8: 666. 
 
 -Home and Haunts of. (F. B. Sanborn) Scrib- 
 ner, 17: 496. 
 
 - Lectures at Manchester. Hewitt s Journal, 2 : 
 370- 
 
 - Visit to Scotland. Douglas Jerrold s Shilling 
 Magazine, April, 1848. 
 
 - Lectures and Writings of. Every Saturday, 3 : 
 680; 4: 381. 
 
 -Letters and Social Aims. International Re 
 view, 3 : 249. 
 
 -New Lectures. Christian Review, 15: 249. 
 
 -Poems. (C. E. Norton) Nation, 4: 430. 
 American Whig Review, 6 : 197. (C. A. Bar- 
 tol) Christian Examiner, 42: 255. Southern 
 Literary Messenger, 13: 292. Brownson, 4: 
 262. Democratic Review, 1 : 319. Christian 
 Remembrancer, 15 : 300. 
 
 - Prose Works. Catholic World, 1 1 : 202. 
 
 - Recent Lectures and Writings. Fraser, 75 : 
 586. Same article, Living Age, 93 : 581. 
 
 -Representative Men. (C. A. Bartol) Christian 
 
 Examiner, 48 : 314. Eclectic Review, 95 : 568. 
 
 British Quarterly, n : 281. 
 Society and Solitude. Fraser, 82 : i. (D. 
 
 March) New Englander, 8 : 186. 
 Writings. (F. H. Hedge) Christian Examiner, 
 
 38 : 87. (J. W. Alexander) Princeton Review, 
 
 13 : 539- 
 
134 
 
 Chambers s Journal, 21, 382. 
 
 Emerson number of Boston Literary World, 
 
 May, 1 88 1. 
 
 North American Review, July, 1882. 
 
 Lippincott s Magazine, November, 1882. 
 
 Atlantic Monthly, August, 1882. 
 
 Harpers Monthly, July and September, 1882. 
 
 Baldwin s Monthly, December, 1881. 
 
 Demorest s Monthly, July, 1882. 
 
 Harpers Weekly, June 10, 1882. 
 
 The Century, July, 1882. 
 
 The Modern Review, October, 1882. 
 
 Fortnightly Review, June, 1882. 
 
 London Illustrated News, May 6, 1882. 
 
 London Graphic, May 6, 1882. 
 
 London Athenaeum, May 6, 1882. 
 
 London Academy, May 6, 1882. 
 
 Gentleman s Magazine, November, 1882. 
 
 Colburn s New Monthly Magazine, December, 
 
 1882. 
 
 Various articles upon Emerson have also 
 appeared in French, German, and other con 
 tinental magazines; but, as we cannot com 
 mand the dates necessary to make an account 
 of them reasonably complete, we forego the 
 attempt. 
 
PRESS OF THEO. L. DE VINNE A CO. N.