152 INDOOE STUDIES 



set forth in quite so telling and authoritative a 

 form. The British literary journals have been in 

 the habit of saying for years, whenever the subject 

 ■was up, that Emerson was not a poet. An able 

 London critic likened him to a Druid who wanders 

 among the bards, and smites the harp with even 

 more than bardic stress. And a poet on the usual 

 terms we must admit Emerson was not. He truly 

 had a druidical cast. His song is an incantation. 

 Not a minstrel at the feast of life is he, but a 

 chanter of runes at life's shrine. Arnold gave us 

 the worst that coiild be said of Emerson as a poet, 

 namely, that he lacked concreteness, sensuousness, 

 and passion. Perhaps the best that can be said of 

 him as a poet is that, notwithstanding these defi- 

 ciencies, there is usually a poetic stress in his verse, 

 a burden and an intensity of poetic appeal, that 

 would be hard to match in any other poet. He 

 had the eye and ear of the poet preternaturally 

 sharpened, but lacked the full poetic utterance. It 

 would seem as if he besieged the Muses with all 

 the more seriousness and eloquence because of the 

 gifts that had been denied him. His verse is full 

 of disembodied iDoetio values, of "melody born of 

 melody." Compared with the other poets, he is 

 like an essence compared to fruits or flowers. He 

 pierced the symbol, he discarded the corporeal; his 

 science savors of magic, his power of some mysteri- 

 ous occult force. Yet to say he is not a true poet 

 implies too much; he does not stop short of the 

 achievements of other poets, but goes beyond them. 



