"The hand that rounded Peter's dome
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome
Wrought in a sad sincerity;
Himself from God he could not free;
He builded better than he knew;—
The conscious stone to beauty grew."
The Sphinx thus expresses one of Emerson's favorite thoughts:—
"To vision profounder,
Man's spirit must dive,"
and concludes with the Sphinx's thought-provoking statement:-
"Who telleth one of my meanings,
Is master of all I am."
This line in Brahma:—
"I am the doubter and the doubt,"
shows his belief in the unity of all things, his conviction that all existence and action result from one underlying force. His own personal philosophy, that which actuated him in dealing with his fellow-men, is expressed in the following lines, which are worthy a place in the active memory of every American:—
"Life is too short to waste
In critic peep or cynic bark,
Quarrel or reprimand:
'Twill soon be dark."
While we are enjoying his poetry, we feel its limitations. Having slight ear for music, he often wrote halting lines. Sometimes his poetic flight is marked by too sudden a descent, but we shall often find in his verse rare jewels, such as:—