NOTES.

NOTES.

THE SPHINX (p. 3). This poem, which confronts the reader with singular fitness at the very doorway of Emerson's gnomic verse, is meant to indicate the oneness of the universe. To those unable to grasp the "scheme of things entire," every detail of life is a riddle and a mystery; but the poet-the understanding, interpretative soul-can see the world in a grain of sand, and by a reverent appreciation of one fact, holds the key to all Nature's secrets.

p. 5, l. 4, originally read:

Has turned the man-child's head.

p. 5, l. 21. This stanza originally began:

Profounder, profounder,
Man's spirit must dive;
To his aye-rolling orbit
No goal will arrive.

URIEL (p. 13). This poem is both general and particular, and in the latter aspect must be taken as a foot-note to the Divinity College Address in vol. iii. In this Address, Emerson, like his own Uriel, spoke truths too daring for the older ministers to accept, and they were offended and disquieted, while he was shunned and suspected. The whole affair was deliberately forgotten; but even to the most orthodox of the "stern old war-gods" would come at times an uncomfortable doubt that perhaps the "young deity" was right after all.

THE WORLD-SOUL (p. 14). This poem is a characteristic piece of mysticism. It indicates the belief that there is a consciousness at the heart of things, working always for good, even by means that seem evil and disastrous. There are no important variations of text, though the last stanza on p. 16 begins thus in the first edition :

For Destiny does not like
To yield to man the helm ;
And shoots his thought, etc.

ALPHONSO OF CASTILE (p. 18). Alfonso X. (1221-84), King of Leon and Castile, was the Admirable Crichton of monarchs. He was no mean captain in war, he practically founded a national Castilian literature, he was eminent in astronomy, he wrote philosophical poems and codified the laws. The present piece underwent no change of text.

MITHRIDATES (p. 20). Mithridates the Great, King of Pontus, flourished in the second and first centuries B.C., and was the hero of

several wars with the Romans. He is fabled to have taken poisons systematically to gain immunity from their toxic effects. Emerson frequently alludes to this, and once uses the adjective "mithridatic.” The poem itself follows somewhat obscurely the lines of others in the volume, and puts forward Mithridates as the type of the strong man able to evade the harm of things, and even to gain nourishment from what would destroy less finely-tempered souls. ended with the lines:

The first version

To J. W. (p. 21).

God! I will not be an owl,
But sun me in the Capitol.

Addressed, we are told, to a young clergyman

who was inclined to emphasize the faults of Goethe.

FATE (p. 22). The last two lines of this piece are a characteristic variation of the Miltonic theme:

"They also serve, who only stand and wait."

Guy (p. 23). The six lines beginning foes" do not occur in the first edition.

"Fearless Guy had never

1. 7. Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, is the type of unusual goodfortune. So monotonously successful was he, that Amasis, King of Egypt, advised him to make some notable voluntary sacrifice that his life might be humanly chequered with ill. Polycrates then threw into the sea a ring of enormous value; but very soon after, the ring was found in the belly of a fish set before him at table. Amasis, fearing that some terrible disaster attended upon such unnatural prosperity, severed his alliance with Polycrates, who, shortly after, was overthrown and shamefully slain. (Herodotus, iii. 40.)

TACT (p. 24). This rather trivial piece of "worldly-wise" verse was omitted by Emerson from later collections of his poems.

HAMATREYA (p. 25). Emerson evidently derived the name and idea of this piece from his reading in the Eastern sacred writings. The "Earth-Song" is noticeably Oriental in flavour.

GOOD-BYE (p. 27). This is a very early piece, as its general tone indicates.

WOODNOTES (p. 32). This poem underwent considerable revision. In the first edition it begins thus:

For this present, hard

Is the fortune of the bard,

Born out of time;

All his accomplishment,

From Nature's utmost treasure spent

Booteth not him.

1

When the pine tosses its cones
To the song of its waterfall tones,
He speeds to the woodland walks,
To birds and trees he talks:
Cæsar of his leasy Rome,
There the poet is at home.
He goes to the river-side,—
Not hook nor line hath he;
He stands in the meadows wide,—
Nor gun nor scythe to see;
With none has he to do,
And none seek him,
Nor men below,

Nor spirits dim.

Sure some god his eye enchants:
What he knows, nobody wants.
In the wood he travels glad,
Without better fortune had,
Melancholy without bad,

Planter of celestial plants,

What he knows, nobody wants;

What he knows, he hides, not vaunts.
Knowledge, etc.

p. 33. The "forest seer" is Thoreau.

p. 36. In the first edition, after the eighth line of Part II. we have

this passage: