Tormenting Pan to double the dose.”
But for these defects of form Emerson as poet makes ample amends by the richness and accuracy of his observation of nature, by the vigorous flight of his imagination, by the depth and at times the passionate controlled intensity of his feeling. Of love-poetry he has none, except the philosophical. Of narrative poetry he has practically none, unless you count such brief, vivid touches as,—
“By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.”
But his descriptive pieces are of a rare beauty and charm, truthful in broad outline and delicate detail, every flower and every bird in its right colour and place. Walking with him you see and breathe New England in the light of early morn, with the dew sparkling on the grass and all the cosmic forces working underneath it. His reflective and symbolic poems, like Each and All, The Problem, Forerunners, Days, The Sphinx, are full of a searching and daring imaginative power. He has also the genius of the perfect phrase.
“The frolic architecture of the snow.”
“Earth proudly wears the Parthenon,
As the best gem upon her zone”