The joyful traveller gives, when on the verge

Of craggy Indian wilderness he hears

From a log-cabin stream Beethoven’s notes

On the piano, played with master’s hand.

‘Well done!’ he cries; ‘the bear is kept at bay,

The lynx, the rattlesnake, the flood, the fire;

All the fierce enemies, ague, hunger, cold,

This thin spruce roof, this clayed log-wall,

This wild plantation will suffice to chase.

Now speed the gay celerities of art,

What in the desart was impossible

Within four walls is possible again, –

Culture and libraries, mysteries of skill,

Traditioned fame of masters, eager strife

Of keen competing youths, joined or alone

To outdo each other, and extort applause.

Mind wakes a new-born giant from her sleep.

Twirl the old wheels! Time takes fresh start again,

On for a thousand years of genius more.’

The holidays were fruitful, but must end;

One August evening had a cooler breath;

Into each mind intruding duties crept;

Under the cinders burned the fires of home;

Nay, letters found us in our paradise;

So in the gladness of the new event

We struck our camp, and left the happy hills.

The fortunate star that rose on us sank not;

The prodigal sunshine rested on the land,

The rivers gambolled onward to the sea,

And Nature, the inscrutable and mute,

Permitted on her infinite repose

Almost a smile to steal to cheer her sons,

As if one riddle of the Sphinx were guessed.

From The Poet

… the poet is representative. He stands among partial men for the complete man, and apprises us not of his wealth, but of the common-wealth. The young man reveres men of genius, because, to speak truly, they are more himself than he is. They receive of the soul as he also receives, but they more. Nature enhances her beauty, to the eye of loving men, from their belief that the poet is beholding her shows at the same time. He is isolated among his contemporaries, by truth and by his art, but with this consolation in his pursuits, that they will draw all men sooner or later. For all men live by truth, and stand in need of expression. In love, in art, in avarice, in politics, in labour, in games, we study to utter our painful secret. The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression.

Notwithstanding this necessity to be published, adequate expression is rare. I know not how it is that we need an interpreter; but the great majority of men seem to be minors, who have not yet come into possession of their own, or mutes, who cannot report the conversation they have had with nature. There is no man who does not anticipate a supersensual utility in the sun, and stars, earth, and water. These stand and wait to render him a peculiar service. But there is some obstruction, or some excess of phlegm in our constitution, which does not suffer them to yield the due effect. The impressions of nature fall on us too feebly to make us artists. Every touch should thrill. Every man should be so much an artist, that he could report in conversation what had befallen him. Yet, in our experience, the rays or appulses have sufficient force to arrive at the senses, but not enough to reach the quick, and compel the reproduction of themselves in speech. The poet is the person in whom these powers are in balance, the man without impediment, who sees and handles that which others dream of, traverses the whole scale of experience, and is representative of man, in virtue of being the largest power to receive and to impart.