inevitable as life ... it is as exact and plumb as gravitation. From
the eyesight proceeds another eyesight and from the hearing proceeds
another hearing and from the voice proceeds another voice eternally
curious of the harmony of things with man. To these respond
perfections not only in the committees that were supposed to stand for
the rest but in the rest themselves just the same. These understand
the law of perfection in masses and floods ... that its finish is
to each for itself and onward from itself ... that it is profuse and
impartial ... that there is not a minute of the light or dark nor an
acre of the earth and sea without it--nor any direction of the sky
nor any trade or employment nor any turn of events. This is the reason
that about the proper expression of beauty there is precision and
balance ... one part does not need to be thrust above another. The
best singer is not the one who has the most lithe and powerful organ
... the pleasure of poems is not in them that take the handsomest
measure and similes and sound.
Without effort and without exposing in the least how it is done the
greatest poet brings the spirit of any or all events and passions and
scenes and persons some more and some less to bear on your individual
character as you hear or read. To do this well is to compete with the
laws that pursue and follow time. What is the purpose must surely be
there and the clue of it must be there ... and the faintest
indication is the indication of the best and then becomes the clearest
indication. Past and present and future are not disjoined but joined.
The greatest poet forms the consistence of what is to be from what has
been and is. He drags the dead out of their coffins and stands them
again on their feet ... he says to the past, Rise and walk before me
that I may realize you. He learns the lesson ... he places himself
where the future becomes present. The greatest poet does not only
dazzle his rays over character and scenes and passions ... he finally
ascends and finishes all ... he exhibits the pinnacles that no man can
tell what they are for or what is beyond ... he glows a moment on the
extremest verge. He is most wonderful in his last half-hidden smile or
frown ... by that flash of the moment of parting the one that sees
it shall be encouraged or terrified afterward for many years. The
greatest poet does not moralize or make applications of morals ... he
knows the soul. The soul has that measureless pride which consists in
never acknowledging any lessons but its own. But it has sympathy as
measureless as its pride and the one balances the other and neither
can stretch too far while it stretches in company with the other. The
inmost secrets of art sleep with the twain. The greatest poet has lain
close betwixt both and they are vital in his style and thoughts.
The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the
light of letters is simplicity. Nothing is better than simplicity ...
nothing can make up for excess or for the lack of definiteness. To
carry on the heave of impulse and pierce intellectual depths and give
all subjects their articulations are powers neither common nor very
uncommon. But to speak in literature with the perfect rectitude and
insouciance of the movements of animals and the unimpeachableness of
the sentiment of trees in the woods and grass by the roadside is the
flawless triumph of art. If you have looked on him who has achieved
it you have looked on one of the masters of the artists of all nations
and times. You shall not contemplate the flight of the gray gull
over the bay or the mettlesome action of the blood horse or the tall
leaning of sunflowers on their stalk or the appearance of the sun
journeying through heaven or the appearance of the moon afterward with
any more satisfaction than you shall contemplate him. The greatest
poet has less a marked style and is more the channel of thoughts
and things without increase or diminution and is the free channel of
himself. He swears to his art, I will not be meddlesome, I will not
have in my writing any elegance or effect or originality to hang in
the way between me and the rest like curtains. I will have nothing
hang in the way not the richest curtains. What I tell I tell for
precisely what it is. Let who may exalt or startle or fascinate or
soothe I will have purposes as health or heat or snow has and be as
regardless of observation. What I experience or portray shall go from
my composition without a shred of my composition. You shall stand by
my side and look in the mirror with me.
The old red blood and stainless gentility of great poets will be
proved by their unconstraint. A heroic person walks at his ease
through and out of that custom or precedent or authority that suits
him not. Of the traits of the brotherhood of writers savans musicians
inventors and artists, nothing is finer than silent defiance advancing
from new free forms. In the need of poems philosophy politics
mechanism science behavior, the craft of art, an appropriate native
grand-opera, shipcraft; or any craft, he is greatest for ever and
for ever who contributes the greatest original practical example. The
cleanest expression is that which finds no sphere worthy of itself and
makes one. The messages of great poets to each man and woman are,
Come to us on equal terms, Only then can you understand us, We are no
better than you, What we enclose you enclose, What we enjoy you may
enjoy. Did you suppose there could be only one Supreme? We affirm
there can be unnumbered Supremes, and that one does not countervail
another any more than one eyesight countervails another ... and that
men can be good or grand only of the consciousness of their supremacy
within them. What do you think is the grandeur of storms and
dismemberments and the deadliest battles and wrecks and the wildest
fury of the elements and the power of the sea and the motion of nature
and the throes of human desires and dignity and hate and love? It
is that something in the soul which says, Rage on, Whirl on, I tread
master here and everywhere, Master of the spasms of the sky and of the
shatter of the sea, Master of nature and passion and death, And of all
terror and all pain.
The American bards shall be marked for generosity and affection and
for encouraging competitors.... They shall be kosmos ... without
monopoly or secrecy ... glad to pass anything to any one ... hungry
for equals night and day. They shall not be careful of riches and
privilege ... they shall be riches and privilege ... they shall
perceive who the most affluent man is. The most affluent man is
he that confronts all the shows he sees by equivalents out of the
stronger wealth of himself. The American bard shall delineate no class
of persons nor one or two out of the strata of interests nor love most
nor truth most nor the soul most nor the body most ... and not be for
the eastern states more than the western or the northern states more
than the southern.
Exact science and its practical movements are no checks on the
greatest poet but always his encouragement and support. The outset
and remembrance are there ... there the arms that lifted him first and
brace him best ... there he returns after all his goings and comings.
The sailor and traveller ... the anatomist chemist astronomer
geologist phrenologist spiritualist mathematician historian and
lexicographer are not poets, but they are the lawgivers of poets and
their construction underlies the structure of every perfect poem. No
matter what rises or is uttered they sent the seed of the conception
of it ... of them and by them stand the visible proofs of souls ...
always of their fatherstuff must be begotten the sinewy races of
bards. If there shall be love and content between the father and the
son and if the greatness of the son is the exuding of the greatness
of the father there shall be love between the poet and the man of
demonstrable science. In the beauty of poems are the tuft and final
applause of science.
Great is the faith of the flush of knowledge and of the investigation
of the depths of qualities and things. Cleaving and circling here
swells the soul of the poet yet is president of itself always. The
depths are fathomless and therefore calm. The innocence and nakedness
are resumed ... they are neither modest nor immodest. The whole theory
of the special and supernatural and all that was twined with it or
educed out of it departs as a dream. What has ever happened ... what
happens and whatever may or shall happen, the vital laws enclose all
... they are sufficient for any case and for all cases ... none to be
hurried or retarded ... any miracle of affairs or persons inadmissible
in the vast clear scheme where every motion and every spear of grass
and the frames and spirits of men and women and all that concerns
them are unspeakably perfect miracles all referring to all and each
distinct and in its place. It is also not consistent with the reality
of the soul to admit that there is anything in the known universe more
divine than men and women.
Men and women and the earth and all upon it are simply to be taken as
they are, and the investigation of their past and present and future
shall be unintermitted and shall be done with perfect candor. Upon
this basis philosophy speculates ever looking towards the poet,
ever regarding the eternal tendencies of all toward happiness never
inconsistent with what is clear to the senses and to the soul. For the
eternal tendencies of all toward happiness make the only point of sane
philosophy. Whatever comprehends less than that ... whatever is less
than the laws of light and of astronomical motion ... or less than
the laws that follow the thief the liar the glutton and the drunkard
through this life and doubtless afterward ... or less than vast
stretches of time or the slow formation of density or the patient
upheaving of strata--is of no account. Whatever would put God in
a poem or system of philosophy as contending against some being or
influence is also of no account. Sanity and ensemble characterize
the great master ... spoilt in one principle all is spoilt. The great
master has nothing to do with miracles. He sees health for himself in
being one of the mass ... he sees the hiatus in singular eminence. To
the perfect shape comes common ground. To be under the general law is
great, for that is to correspond with it. The master knows that he is
unspeakably great and that all are unspeakably great ... that nothing
for instance is greater than to conceive children and bring them up
well ... that to be is just as great as to perceive or tell.
In the make of the great masters the idea of political liberty is
indispensable. Liberty takes the adherence of heroes wherever men and
women exist ... but never takes any adherence or welcome from the rest
more than from poets. They are the voice and exposition of liberty.
They out of ages are worthy the grand idea ... to them it is confided
and they must sustain it. Nothing has precedence of it and nothing can
warp or degrade it. The attitude of great poets is to cheer up slaves
and horrify despots. The turn of their necks, the sound of their feet,
the motions of their wrists, are full of hazard to the one and hope
to the other. Come nigh them awhile and though they neither speak nor
advise you shall learn the faithful American lesson. Liberty is poorly
served by men whose good intent is quelled from one failure or two
failures or any number of failures, or from the casual indifference
or ingratitude of the people, or from the sharp show of the tushes
of power, or the bringing to bear soldiers and cannon or any penal
statutes. Liberty relies upon itself, invites no one, promises
nothing, sits in calmness and light, is positive and composed, and
knows no discouragement. The battle rages with many a loud alarm and
frequent advance and retreat ... the enemy triumphs ... the prison,
the handcuffs, the iron necklace and anklet, the scaffold, garrote and
leadballs do their work ... the cause is asleep ... the strong throats
are choked with their own blood ... the young men drop their eyelashes
toward the ground when they pass each other ... and is liberty gone
out of that place? No never. When liberty goes it is not the first to
go nor the second or third to go ... it awaits for all the rest to go
... it is the last.... When the memories of the old martyrs are faded
utterly away ... when the large names of patriots are laughed at in
the public halls from the lips of the orators ... when the boys are
no more christened after the same but christened after tyrants
and traitors instead ... when the laws of the free are grudgingly
permitted and the laws for informers and bloodmoney are sweet to the
taste of the people ... when I and you walk abroad upon the earth
stung with compassion at the sight of numberless brothers answering
our equal friendship and calling no man master--and when we are elated
with noble joy at the sight of slaves ... when the soul retires in the
cool communion of the night and surveys its experience and has much
extasy over the word and deed that put back a helpless innocent person
into the gripe of the gripers or into any cruel inferiority ... when
those in all parts of these states who could easier realize the true
American character but do not yet--when the swarms of cringers,
suckers, doughfaces, lice of politics, planners of sly involutions
for their own preferment to city offices or state legislatures or the
judiciary or congress or the presidency, obtain a response of love and
natural deference from the people whether they get the offices or no
... when it is better to be a bound booby and rogue in office at a
high salary than the poorest free mechanic or farmer with his hat
unmoved from his head and firm eyes and a candid and generous heart
... and when servility by town or state or the federal government or
any oppression on a large scale or small scale can be tried on without
its own punishment following duly after in exact proportion against
the smallest chance of escape ... or rather when all life and all the
souls of men and women are discharged from any part of the earth--then
only shall the instinct of liberty be discharged from that part of the
earth.
As the attributes of the poets of the kosmos concentre in the
real body and soul and in the pleasure of things they possess the
superiority of genuineness over all fiction and romance. As they emit
themselves facts are showered over with light ... the daylight is lit
with more volatile light ... also the deep between the setting and
rising sun goes deeper many fold. Each precise object or condition or
combination or process exhibits a beauty ... the multiplication table
its--old age its--the carpenter's trade its--the grand opera its--the
hugehulled cleanshaped New-York clipper at sea under steam or full
sail gleams with unmatched beauty.... the American circles and large
harmonies of government gleam with theirs ... and the commonest
definite intentions and actions with theirs. The poets of the kosmos
advance through all interpositions and coverings and turmoils and
stratagems to first principles. They are of use ... they dissolve
poverty from its need and riches from its conceit. You large
proprietor, they say, shall not realize or perceive more than any one
else. The owner of the library is not he who holds a legal title to it
having bought and paid for it. Any one and every one is owner of the
library who can read the same through all the varieties of tongues
and subjects and styles, and in whom they enter with ease and take
residence and force toward paternity and maternity, and make supple
and powerful and rich and large.... These American states strong and
healthy and accomplished shall receive no pleasure from violations of
natural models and must not permit them. In paintings or mouldings
or carvings in mineral or wood, or in the illustrations of books and
newspapers, or in any comic or tragic prints, or in the patterns of
woven stuffs or anything to beautify rooms or furniture or costumes,
or to put upon cornices or monuments or on the prows or sterns of
ships, or to put anywhere before the human eye indoors or out, that
which distorts honest shapes or which creates unearthly beings or
places or contingencies, is a nuisance and revolt. Of the human
form especially, it is so great it must never be made ridiculous.
Of ornaments to a work nothing outré can be allowed ... but those
ornaments can be allowed that conform to the perfect facts of the
open air, and that flow out of the nature of the work and come
irrepressibly from it and are necessary to the completion of the work.
Most works are most beautiful without ornament ... Exaggerations
will be revenged in human physiology. Clean and vigorous children are
jetted and conceived only in those communities where the models of
natural forms are public every day ... Great genius and the people of
these states must never be demeaned to romances. As soon as histories
are properly told there is no more need of romances.
The great poets are also to be known by the absence in them of tricks
and by the justification of perfect personal candor. Then folks echo
a new cheap joy and a divine voice leaping from their brains: How
beautiful is candor! All faults may be forgiven of him who has
perfect candor. Henceforth let no man of us lie, for we have seen that
openness wins the inner and outer world and that there is no single
exception, and that never since our earth gathered itself in a mass
have deceit or subterfuge or prevarication attracted its smallest
particle or the faintest tinge of a shade--and that through the
enveloping wealth and rank of a state or the whole republic of states
a sneak or sly person shall be discovered and despised ... and that
the soul has never once been fooled and never can be fooled ... and
thrift without the loving nod of the soul is only a foetid puff ...
and there never grew up in any of the continents of the globe nor upon
any planet or satellite or star, nor upon the asteroids, nor in any
part of ethereal space, nor in the midst of density, nor under the
fluid wet of the sea, nor in that condition which precedes the birth
of babes, nor at any time during the changes of life, nor in that
condition that follows what we term death, nor in any stretch of
abeyance or action afterward of vitality, nor in any process of
formation or reformation anywhere, a being whose instinct hated the
truth.