From Emerson, “The Poet”
I am thoroughly enjoying Emerson’s writings. I wish I had read him sooner, but maybe you have to come to a point in life to be able to appreciate certain things. In any case, I have found all of his essays to be very thought provoking, and then I came to “The Poet” in Essays: Second Series. I almost put it down, but decided to just keep reading and I am so glad I did. About two-thirds through, I came across this gem. It’s long so be forewarned and it is in the context of the poet, but Emerson suggests earlier that the poet is simply the one who has the ability to put to words that which he experiences in nature. Anyone, he would argue, can relate to the deep experiences of nature which is what he also writes about here. (At least that’s how I read him) I also don’t think he is saying that technology, cities, etc are bad things (he traveled himself) but rather he warns against finding our happiness in things. This passage is loaded with thought provoking ideas, glean from it what you will.
For me; it brought to mind my mother and the simple life she followed; early marriage when we couldn’t even afford to travel home, but with each other for company and a few simple ingredients, our Christmas Eve feast was born; my daughters playing in our back yard or at a campsite on a lake; my grandchildren playing as the tree limbs taken down in their back yard became a make-believe wonderland; my granddaughter as she hunted bears in our vineyard with her bow and arrows made from a pear tree branch and store string; my own times growing up and wandering along the creek or now spending time among the vines. As I read this passage, Thoreau’s words rang in the background, “simplify, simplify, simplify”
“…The sublime vision comes to the pure and simple soul in a clean and chaste body. That is not an inspiration, which we owe to narcotics, but (which is but) some counterfeit excitement and fury. Milton says that the lyric poet may drink wine and live generously, but the epic poet, he who shall sing of the gods and their descent unto men, must drink water out of a wooden bowl. For poetry is not ‘Devil’s wine,’ but God’s wine. It is with this as it is with toys. We fill the hands and nurseries of our children with all manner of dolls, drums and horses; withdrawing their eyes from the plain face and sufficing objects of nature, the sun and moon, the animals, the water and stones, which should be their toys. So the poet’s habit of living should be set on a key so low that the common influences should delight him. His cheerfulness should be the gift of the sunlight; the air should suffice for his inspiration, and he should be tipsy with water. That spirit which suffices quiet hearts, which seems to come forth to such from every dry knoll of sere grass, from every pine stump and half-imbedded stone on which the dull March sun shines, comes forth to the poor and hungry, and such as are of simple taste. If thou fill thy brain with Boston and New York, with fashion and covetousness, and wilt stimulate thy jaded senses with wine and French coffee, thou shalt find no radiance of wisdom in the lonely waste of the pine woods.” (Emerson, “The Poet”)
