E. A. silsbee's remarks. 25 



and finely imitative as the Snow Storm, a sustained note of 

 style, the form is mostly old English, Marvel and Herrick, 

 and others of the time of surprises and the golden ore of 

 poetry. Emerson has no song in him, no feeling in pro- 

 portion to thought and acute perceptions. Feeling is the 

 mortar of poetry without which its edifice does not rise. 

 It is the string on which its beads, for religion or beauty, 

 are strung. It is Milton's "passion." 



Shelley is the deepest-breathed of modern poets. He 

 empties his nature into his verse. He lends you his soul to 

 see with. His matter is not rich, but his manner and 

 scope are unlimited. 



Emerson is a string of brilliances not fused. Too 

 tense, too much strain. We miss the connecting link, 

 the subtle alchemy of emotion, grace, unconsciousness. 

 Coruscation, astonishment suffice not. We wish to be 

 appealed to in the heart, converted not amazed. We are 

 let up into high regions and pure, too rare for verse. 

 Speculation is not poetry. 



Emerson is the pithiest writer that ever lived. His 

 works are strewn with thoughts like blackberries. This 

 is the old English way of Bacon and others. He is a 

 graft taken out of England two centuries and a half ago 

 with New England relish added, the best Englishman 

 living because countryman at this hour of Andrew Mar- 

 vel, Milton, and the like. But he is too intellectual for 

 poetry. New England generally is, and too moral. Ev- 

 erything is crushed into apothegm, pithy, condensed, neat, 

 felicitous. This is not the manner of inspiration, or of a 

 very dry kind ; poetry is primarily feeling ; all art is, as 

 religion itself. Homer, the father of poetry, is not great 

 for thought, nor Burns. Great art is in simple lines of 

 infinite complexity like nature herself. 



Swinbourne has been adding a swing, a verbal note. 



2* 



