64 B Y- W 'A YS AND B IRD-NO TES. 



as Coleridge expresses it, was Chaucer's verse 

 in a large degree. His was a paradis parfumd, 

 of a kind quite different from the hot-house 

 paradise of our modern poetry, whose odors are 

 of Vhuile de coco, du muse et dugoudron so liked 

 by Baudelaire and his admirers. 



Emerson's poems are good to have in one's 

 tricycle-pouch. I wish I could say as much for 

 those of Matthew Arnold. Nothing can be 

 finer than the tonic raw sweetness of some of 

 Emerson's verses when read in the solitude of 

 the woods ; and no doubt this unstrained 

 American honey is too rich (as is the pulp of 

 our papaws) for the over-delicate English pal- 

 ate. I am afraid that Mr. Arnold would find 

 fault even with the flavor of sassafras tea or 

 rhubarb pies ! It is one of Emerson's quali- 

 ties, sharply observable, that, whatever maybe 

 his technical short-coming, his thoughts are so 

 phrased in his poems as to give them a smack 

 of the clean, the home-brewed, the genuine. 

 A cup of sweet-apple cider, with its honest bou- 

 quet and non-intoxicating effect, is not a whit 

 more grateful than some of his wood-notes. 

 He had the nerve to preserve the aroma of a 

 thought, even at the expense of a false rhyme 

 or a halting verse. He left some seeds and 

 floating bits of apple-rind in his cider. As we 

 slowly imbibe his precious meanings we are 

 ready to quote him : 



" I, drinking this, 

 Shall hear far Chaos talk with me;" 



and we fall into a state of mind that melts 



" Solid nature to a dream." 

 Let some flying tourist stop for a moment 



