and ear-rings, and fringed with fresh adjectives
like edges of embroidery. That one word _pleached,_ an heir-loom from
Queen Elizabeth's day, gives to the noble sonnet an antique dignity and
charm like the effect of an ancestral jewel. But mark that now the
poet reveals himself as he could not in the prosaic form of the first
extract. It is his own neglect of his great opportunity of which he
now speaks, and not merely the indolent indifference of others. It
is himself who is the object of scorn. Self-revelation of beauty
embellished by ornaments is the privilege of full dress; self-revelation
in the florid costume of verse is the divine right of the poet. Passion
that must express itself longs always for the freedom of rhythmic
utterance. And in spite of the exaggeration and extravagance which
shield themselves under the claim of poetic license, I venture to affirm
that "_In_ vino _veritas_" is not truer than _In_ carmine _veritas_.
As a further illustration of what has just been said of the
self-revelations to be looked for in verse, and in Emerson's verse more
especially, let the reader observe how freely he talks about his bodily
presence and infirmities in his poetry,--subjects he never referred to
in prose, except incidentally, in private letters.

Emerson is so essentially a poet that whole pages of his are like so
many litanies of alternating chants and recitations. His thoughts slip
on and off their light rhythmic robes just as the mood takes him, as was
shown in the passage I have quoted in prose and in verse. Many of the
metrical preludes to his lectures are a versified and condensed abstract
of the leading doctrine of the discourse. They are a curious instance of
survival; the lecturer, once a preacher, still wants his text; and finds
his scriptural motto in his own rhythmic inspiration.

Shall we rank Emerson among the great poets or not?

"The great poets are judged by the frame of mind they induce; and to
them, of all men, the severest criticism is due."

These are Emerson's words in the Preface to "Parnassus."

His own poems will stand this test as well as any in the language. They
lift the reader into a higher region of thought and feeling. This seems
to me a better test to apply to them than the one which Mr. Arnold cited
from Milton. The passage containing this must be taken, not alone, but
with the context. Milton had been speaking of "Logic" and of "Rhetoric,"
and spoke of poetry "as be