A moody1 child and wildly wise
Pursued the game with joyful2 eyes,
Which chose, like meteors, their way,
And rived the dark with private ray:
They overleapt the horizon’s edge,
Searched with Apollo’s privilege;
Through man, and woman, and sea, and star,
Saw the dance of nature forward far;
Through worlds, and races, and terms, and times,
Saw musical order, and pairing rhymes.
Divine ideas below,
Which always find us young,
And always keep us so.
ESSAY I The Poet
Those who are esteemed5 umpires of taste, are often persons who have acquired some knowledge of admired pictures or sculptures, and have an inclination6 for whatever is elegant; but if you inquire whether they are beautiful souls, and whether their own acts are like fair pictures, you learn that they are selfish and sensual. Their cultivation7 is local, as if you should rub a log of dry wood in one spot to produce fire, all the rest remaining cold. Their knowledge of the fine arts is some study of rules and particulars, or some limited judgment8 of color or form, which is exercised for amusement or for show. It is a proof of the shallowness of the doctrine10 of beauty, as it lies in the minds of our amateurs, that men seem to have lost the perception of the instant dependence11 of form upon soul. There is no doctrine of forms in our philosophy. We were put into our bodies, as fire is put into a pan, to be carried about; but there is no accurate adjustment between the spirit and the organ, much less is the latter the germination12 of the former. So in regard to other forms, the intellectual men do not believe in any essential dependence of the material world on thought and volition13. Theologians think it a pretty air-castle to talk of the spiritual meaning of a ship or a cloud, of a city or a contract, but they prefer to come again to the solid ground of historical evidence; and even the poets are contented14 with a civil and conformed manner of living, and to write poems from the fancy, at a safe distance from their own experience. But the highest minds of the world have never ceased to explore the double meaning, or, shall I say, the quadruple, or the centuple, or much more manifold meaning, of every sensuous15 fact: Orpheus, Empedocles, Heraclitus, Plato, Plutarch, Dante, Swedenborg, and the masters of sculpture, picture, and poetry. For we are not pans and barrows, nor even porters of the fire and torch-bearers, but children of the fire, made of it, and only the same divinity transmuted16, and at two or three removes, when we know least about it. And this hidden truth, that the fountains whence all this river of Time, and its creatures, floweth, are intrinsically ideal and beautiful, draws us to the consideration of the nature and functions of the Poet, or the man of Beauty, to the means and materials he uses, and to the general aspect of the art in the present time.
The breadth of the problem is great, for the poet is representative. He stands among partial men for the complete man, and apprises17 us not of his wealth, but of the common-wealth. The young man reveres18 men of genius, because, to speak truly, they are more himself than he is. They receive of the soul as he also receives, but they more. Nature enhances her beauty, to the eye of loving men, from their belief that the poet is beholding19 her shows at the same time. He is isolated21 among his contemporaries, by truth and by his art, but with this consolation22 in his pursuits, that they will draw all men sooner or later. For all men live by truth, and stand in need of expression. In love, in art, in avarice23, in politics, in labor24, in games, we study to utter our painful secret. The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression.
Notwithstanding this necessity to be published, adequate expression is rare. I know not how it is that we need an interpreter; but the great majority of men seem to be minors26, who have not yet come into possession of their own, or mutes, who cannot report the conversation they have had with nature. There is no man who does not anticipate a supersensual utility in the sun, and stars, earth, and water. These stand and wait to render him a peculiar27 service. But there is some obstruction28, or some excess of phlegm in our constitution, which does not suffer them to yield the due effect. Too feeble fall the impressions of nature on us to make us artists. Every touch should thrill. Every man should be so much an artist, that he could report in conversation what had befallen him. Yet, in our experience, the rays or appulses have sufficient force to arrive at the senses, but not enough to reach the quick, and compel the reproduction of themselves in speech. The poet is the person in whom these powers are in balance, the man without impediment, who sees and handles that which others dream of, traverses the whole scale of experience, and is representative of man, in virtue30 of being the largest power to receive and to impart.
For the Universe has three children, born at one time, which reappear, under different names, in every system of thought, whether they be called cause, operation, and effect; or, more poetically33, Jove, Pluto34, Neptune35; or, theologically, the Father, the Spirit, and the Son; but which we will call here, the Knower, the Doer, and the Sayer. These stand respectively for the love of truth, for the love of good, and for the love of beauty. These three are equal. Each is that which he is essentially36, so that he cannot be surmounted37 or analyzed38, and each of these three has the power of the others latent in him, and his own patent.
The poet is the sayer, the namer, and represents beauty. He is a sovereign, and stands on the centre. For the world is not painted, or adorned39, but is from the beginning beautiful; and God has not made some beautiful things, but Beauty is the creator of the universe. Therefore the poet is not any permissive potentate40, but is emperor in his own right. Criticism is infested41 with a cant42 of materialism43, which assumes that manual skill and activity is the first merit of all men, and disparages44 such as say and do not, overlooking the fact, that some men, namely, poets, are natural sayers, sent into the world to the end of expression, and confounds them with those whose province is action, but who quit it to imitate the sayers. But Homer’s words are as costly45 and admirable to Homer, as Agamemnon’s victories are to Agamemnon. The poet does not wait for the hero or the sage46, but, as they act and think primarily, so he writes primarily what will and must be spoken, reckoning the others, though primaries also, yet, in respect to him, secondaries and servants; as sitters or models in the studio of a painter, or as assistants who bring building materials to an architect.
For poetry was all written before time was, and whenever we are so finely organized that we can penetrate48 into that region where the air is music, we hear those primal49 warblings, and attempt to write them down, but we lose ever and anon a word, or a verse, and substitute something of our own, and thus miswrite the poem. The men of more delicate ear write down these cadences50 more faithfully, and these transcripts51, though imperfect, become the songs of the nations. For nature is as truly beautiful as it is good, or as it is reasonable, and must as much appear, as it must be done, or be known. Words and deeds are quite indifferent modes of the divine energy. Words are also actions, and actions are a kind of words.
The sign and credentials52 of the poet are, that he announces that which no man foretold53. He is the true and only doctor; he knows and tells; he is the only teller54 of news, for he was present and privy55 to the appearance which he describes. He is a beholder56 of ideas, and an utterer of the necessary and causal. For we do not speak now of men of poetical31 talents, or of industry and skill in metre, but of the true poet. I took part in a conversation the other day, concerning a recent writer of lyrics58, a man of subtle mind, whose head appeared to be a music-box of delicate tunes59 and rhythms, and whose skill, and command of language, we could not sufficiently60 praise. But when the question arose, whether he was not only a lyrist, but a poet, we were obliged to confess that he is plainly a contemporary, not an eternal man. He does not stand out of our low limitations, like a Chimborazo under the line, running up from the torrid base through all the climates of the globe, with belts of the herbage of every latitude61 on its high and mottled sides; but this genius is the landscape-garden of a modern house, adorned with fountains and statues, with well-bred men and women standing25 and sitting in the walks and terraces. We hear, through all the varied62 music, the ground-tone of conventional life. Our poets are men of talents who sing, and not the children of music. The argument is secondary, the finish of the verses is primary.
For it is not metres, but a metre-making argument, that makes a poem, — a thought so passionate63 and alive, that, like the spirit of a plant or an animal, it has an architecture of its own, and adorns64 nature with a new thing. The thought and the form are equal in the order of time, but in the order of genesis the thought is prior to the form. The poet has a new thought: he has a whole new experience to unfold; he will tell us how it was with him, and all men will be the richer in his fortune. For, the experience of each new age requires a new confession65, and the world seems always waiting for its poet. I remember, when I was young, how much I was moved one morning by tidings that genius had appeared in a youth who sat near me at table. He had left his work, and gone rambling66 none knew whither, and had written hundreds of lines, but could not tell whether that which was in him was therein told: he could tell nothing but that all was changed, — man, beast, heaven, earth, and sea. How gladly we listened! how credulous67! Society seemed to be compromised. We sat in the aurora68 of a sunrise which was to put out all the stars. Boston seemed to be at twice the distance it had the night before, or was much farther than that. Rome, — what was Rome? Plutarch and Shakspeare were in the yellow leaf, and Homer no more should be heard of. It is much to know that poetry has been written this very day, under this very roof, by your side. What! that wonderful spirit has not expired! these stony69 moments are still sparkling and animated70! I had fancied that the oracles71 were all silent, and nature had spent her fires, and behold20! all night, from every pore, these fine auroras have been streaming. Every one has some interest in the advent72 of the poet, and no one knows how much it may concern him. We know that the secret of the world is profound, but who or what shall be our interpreter, we know not. A mountain ramble73, a new style of face, a new person, may put the key into our hands. Of course, the value of genius to us is in the veracity74 of its report. Talent may frolic and juggle75; genius realizes and adds. Mankind, in good earnest, have availed so far in understanding themselves and their work, that the foremost watchman on the peak announces his news. It is the truest word ever spoken, and the phrase will be the fittest, most musical, and the unerring voice of the world for that time.
All that we call sacred history attests76 that the birth of a poet is the principal event in chronology. Man, never so often deceived, still watches for the arrival of a brother who can hold him steady to a truth, until he has made it his own. With what joy I begin to read a poem, which I confide77 in as an inspiration! And now my chains are to be broken; I shall mount above these clouds and opaque78 airs in which I live, — opaque, though they seem transparent79, — and from the heaven of truth I shall see and comprehend my relations. That will reconcile me to life, and renovate80 nature, to see trifles animated by a tendency, and to know what I am doing. Life will no more be a noise; now I shall see men and women, and know the signs by which they may be discerned from fools and satans. This day shall be better than my birth-day: then I became an animal: now I am invited into the science of the real. Such is the hope, but the fruition is postponed81. Oftener it falls, that this winged man, who will carry me into the heaven, whirls me into the clouds, then leaps and frisks about with me from cloud to cloud, still affirming that he is bound heavenward; and I, being myself a novice82, am slow in perceiving that he does not know the way into the heavens, and is merely bent83 that I should admire his skill to rise, like a fowl84 or a flying fish, a little way from the ground or the water; but the all-piercing, all-feeding, and ocular air of heaven, that man shall never inhabit. I tumble down again soon into my old nooks, and lead the life of exaggerations as before, and have lost my faith in the possibility of any guide who can lead me thither85 where I would be.
But leaving these victims of vanity, let us, with new hope, observe how nature, by worthier86 impulses, has ensured the poet’s fidelity87 to his office of announcement and affirming, namely, by the beauty of things, which becomes a new, and higher beauty, when expressed. Nature offers all her creatures to him as a picture-language. Being used as a type, a second wonderful value appears in the object, far better than its old value, as the carpenter’s stretched cord, if you hold your ear close enough, is musical in the breeze. “Things more excellent than every image,” says Jamblichus, “are expressed through images.” Things admit of being used as symbols, because nature is a symbol, in the whole, and in every part. Every line we can draw in the sand, has expression; and there is no body without its spirit or genius. All form is an effect of character; all condition, of the quality of the life; all harmony, of health; (and, for this reason, a perception of beauty should be sympathetic, or proper only to the good.) The beautiful rests on the foundations of the necessary. The soul makes the body, as the wise Spenser teaches: —
“So every spirit, as it is most pure,
And hath in it the more of heavenly light,
So it the fairer body doth procure88
To habit in, and it more fairly dight,
With cheerful grace and amiable89 sight.
For, of the soul, the body form doth take,
For soul is form, and doth the body make.”
Here we find ourselves, suddenly, not in a critical speculation90, but in a holy place, and should go very warily91 and reverently92. We stand before the secret of the world, there where Being passes into Appearance, and Unity93 into Variety.
The Universe is the externisation of the soul. Wherever the life is, that bursts into appearance around it. Our science is sensual, and therefore superficial. The earth, and the heavenly bodies, physics, and chemistry, we sensually treat, as if they were self-existent; but these are the retinue94 of that Being we have. “The mighty95 heaven,” said Proclus, “exhibits, in its transfigurations, clear images of the splendor96 of intellectual perceptions; being moved in conjunction with the unapparent periods of intellectual natures.” Therefore, science always goes abreast97 with the just elevation98 of the man, keeping step with religion and metaphysics; or, the state of science is an index of our self-knowledge. Since everything in nature answers to a moral power, if any phenomenon remains99 brute100 and dark, it is that the corresponding faculty101 in the observer is not yet active.
No wonder, then, if these waters be so deep, that we hover102 over them with a religious regard. The beauty of the fable103 proves the importance of the sense; to the poet, and to all others; or, if you please, every man is so far a poet as to be susceptible104 of these enchantments105 of nature: for all men have the thoughts whereof the universe is the celebration. I find that the fascination106 resides in the symbol. Who loves nature? Who does not? Is it only poets, and men of leisure and cultivation, who live with her? No; but also hunters, farmers, grooms107, and butchers, though they express their affection in their choice of life, and not in their choice of words. The writer wonders what the coachman or the hunter values in riding, in horses, and dogs. It is not superficial qualities. When you talk with him, he holds these at as slight a rate as you. His worship is sympathetic; he has no definitions, but he is commanded in nature, by the living power which he feels to be there present. No imitation, or playing of these things, would content him; he loves the earnest of the northwind, of rain, of stone, and wood, and iron. A beauty not explicable, is dearer than a beauty which we can see to the end of. It is nature the symbol, nature certifying108 the supernatural, body overflowed109 by life, which he worships, with coarse, but sincere rites47.
The inwardness, and mystery, of this attachment110, drives men of every class to the use of emblems111. The schools of poets, and philosophers, are not more intoxicated113 with their symbols, than the populace with theirs. In our political parties, compute114 the power of badges and emblems. See the great ball which they roll from Baltimore to Bunker hill! In the political processions, Lowell goes in a loom115, and Lynn in a shoe, and Salem in a ship. Witness the cider-barrel, the log-cabin, the hickory-stick, the palmetto, and all the cognizances of party. See the power of national emblems. Some stars, lilies, leopards116, a crescent, a lion, an eagle, or other figure, which came into credit God knows how, on an old rag of bunting, blowing in the wind, on a fort, at the ends of the earth, shall make the blood tingle117 under the rudest, or the most conventional exterior118. The people fancy they hate poetry, and they are all poets and mystics!
Beyond this universality of the symbolic119 language, we are apprised120 of the divineness of this superior use of things, whereby the world is a temple, whose walls are covered with emblems, pictures, and commandments of the Deity121, in this, that there is no fact in nature which does not carry the whole sense of nature; and the distinctions which we make in events, and in affairs, of low and high, honest and base, disappear when nature is used as a symbol. Thought makes every thing fit for use. The vocabulary of an omniscient122 man would embrace words and images excluded from polite conversation. What would be base, or even obscene, to the obscene, becomes illustrious, spoken in a new connexion of thought. The piety123 of the Hebrew prophets purges124 their grossness. The circumcision is an example of the power of poetry to raise the low and offensive. Small and mean things serve as well as great symbols. The meaner the type by which a law is expressed, the more pungent125 it is, and the more lasting126 in the memories of men: just as we choose the smallest box, or case, in which any needful utensil127 can be carried. Bare lists of words are found suggestive, to an imaginative and excited mind; as it is related of Lord Chatham, that he was accustomed to read in Bailey’s Dictionary, when he was preparing to speak in Parliament. The poorest experience is rich enough for all the purposes of expressing thought. Why covet128 a knowledge of new facts? Day and night, house and garden, a few books, a few actions, serve us as well as would all trades and all spectacles. We are far from having exhausted129 the significance of the few symbols we use. We can come to use them yet with a terrible simplicity130. It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem. Every new relation is a new word. Also, we use defects and deformities to a sacred purpose, so expressing our sense that the evils of the world are such only to the evil eye. In the old mythology131, mythologists observe, defects are ascribed to divine natures, as lameness132 to Vulcan, blindness to Cupid, and the like, to signify exuberances.
For, as it is dislocation and detachment from the life of God, that makes things ugly, the poet, who re-attaches things to nature and the Whole, — re-attaching even artificial things, and violations133 of nature, to nature, by a deeper insight, — disposes very easily of the most disagreeable facts. Readers of poetry see the factory-village, and the railway, and fancy that the poetry of the landscape is broken up by these; for these works of art are not yet consecrated134 in their reading; but the poet sees them fall within the great Order not less than the beehive, or the spider’s geometrical web. Nature adopts them very fast into her vital circles, and the gliding135 train of cars she loves like her own. Besides, in a centred mind, it signifies nothing how many mechanical inventions you exhibit. Though you add millions, and never so surprising, the fact of mechanics has not gained a grain’s weight. The spiritual fact remains unalterable, by many or by few particulars; as no mountain is of any appreciable136 height to break the curve of the sphere. A shrewd country-boy goes to the city for the first time, and the complacent137 citizen is not satisfied with his little wonder. It is not that he does not see all the fine houses, and know that he never saw such before, but he disposes of them as easily as the poet finds place for the railway. The chief value of the new fact, is to enhance the great and constant fact of Life, which can dwarf138 any and every circumstance, and to which the belt of wampum, and the commerce of America, are alike.
The world being thus put under the mind for verb and noun, the poet is he who can articulate it. For, though life is great, and fascinates, and absorbs, — and though all men are intelligent of the symbols through which it is named, — yet they cannot originally use them. We are symbols, and inhabit symbols; workman, work, and tools, words and things, birth and death, all are emblems; but we sympathize with the symbols, and, being infatuated with the economical uses of things, we do not know that they are thoughts. The poet, by an ulterior intellectual perception, gives them a power which makes their old use forgotten, and puts eyes, and a tongue, into every dumb and inanimate object. He perceives the independence of the thought on the symbol, the stability of the thought, the accidency and fugacity of the symbol. As the eyes of Lyncaeus were said to see through the earth, so the poet turns the world to glass, and shows us all things in their right series and procession. For, through that better perception, he stands one step nearer to things, and sees the flowing or metamorphosis; perceives that thought is multiform; that within the form of every creature is a force impelling139 it to ascend140 into a higher form; and, following with his eyes the life, uses the forms which express that life, and so his speech flows with the flowing of nature. All the facts of the animal economy, sex, nutriment, gestation141, birth, growth, are symbols of the passage of the world into the soul of man, to suffer there a change, and reappear a new and higher fact. He uses forms according to the life, and not according to the form. This is true science. The poet alone knows astronomy, chemistry, vegetation, and animation142, for he does not stop at these facts, but employs them as signs. He knows why the plain, or meadow of space, was strown with these flowers we call suns, and moons, and stars; why the great deep is adorned with animals, with men, and gods; for, in every word he speaks he rides on them as the horses of thought.
By virtue of this science the poet is the Namer, or Language-maker, naming things sometimes after their appearance, sometimes after their essence, and giving to every one its own name and not another’s, thereby144 rejoicing the intellect, which delights in detachment or boundary. The poets made all the words, and therefore language is the archives of history, and, if we must say it, a sort of tomb of the muses145. For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolized146 the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist147 finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture. Language is fossil poetry. As the limestone148 of the continent consists of infinite masses of the shells of animalcules, so language is made up of images, or tropes, which now, in their secondary use, have long ceased to remind us of their poetic32 origin. But the poet names the thing because he sees it, or comes one step nearer to it than any other. This expression, or naming, is not art, but a second nature, grown out of the first, as a leaf out of a tree. What we call nature, is a certain self-regulated motion, or change; and nature does all things by her own hands, and does not leave another to baptise her, but baptises herself; and this through the metamorphosis again. I remember that a certain poet described it to me thus:
Genius is the activity which repairs the decays of things, whether wholly or partly of a material and finite kind. Nature, through all her kingdoms, insures herself. Nobody cares for planting the poor fungus149: so she shakes down from the gills of one agaric countless150 spores151, any one of which, being preserved, transmits new billions of spores to-morrow or next day. The new agaric of this hour has a chance which the old one had not. This atom of seed is thrown into a new place, not subject to the accidents which destroyed its parent two rods off. She makes a man; and having brought him to ripe age, she will no longer run the risk of losing this wonder at a blow, but she detaches from him a new self, that the kind may be safe from accidents to which the individual is exposed. So when the soul of the poet has come to ripeness of thought, she detaches and sends away from it its poems or songs, — a fearless, sleepless152, deathless progeny153, which is not exposed to the accidents of the weary kingdom of time: a fearless, vivacious154 offspring, clad with wings (such was the virtue of the soul out of which they came), which carry them fast and far, and infix them irrecoverably into the hearts of men. These wings are the beauty of the poet’s soul. The songs, thus flying immortal155 from their mortal parent, are pursued by clamorous156 flights of censures157, which swarm158 in far greater numbers, and threaten to devour159 them; but these last are not winged. At the end of a very short leap they fall plump down, and rot, having received from the souls out of which they came no beautiful wings. But the melodies of the poet ascend, and leap, and pierce into the deeps of infinite time.
So far the bard3 taught me, using his freer speech. But nature has a higher end, in the production of new individuals, than security, namely, ascension, or, the passage of the soul into higher forms. I knew, in my younger days, the sculptor160 who made the statue of the youth which stands in the public garden. He was, as I remember, unable to tell directly, what made him happy, or unhappy, but by wonderful indirections he could tell. He rose one day, according to his habit, before the dawn, and saw the morning break, grand as the eternity161 out of which it came, and, for many days after, he strove to express this tranquillity162, and, lo! his chisel163 had fashioned out of marble the form of a beautiful youth, Phosphorus, whose aspect is such, that, it is said, all persons who look on it become silent. The poet also resigns himself to his mood, and that thought which agitated164 him is expressed, but alter idem, in a manner totally new. The expression is organic, or, the new type which things themselves take when liberated166. As, in the sun, objects paint their images on the retina of the eye, so they, sharing the aspiration167 of the whole universe, tend to paint a far more delicate copy of their essence in his mind. Like the metamorphosis of things into higher organic forms, is their change into melodies. Over everything stands its daemon, or soul, and, as the form of the thing is reflected by the eye, so the soul of the thing is reflected by a melody. The sea, the mountain-ridge, Niagara, and every flower-bed, pre-exist, or super-exist, in pre-cantations, which sail like odors in the air, and when any man goes by with an ear sufficiently fine, he overhears them, and endeavors to write down the notes, without diluting168 or depraving them. And herein is the legitimation169 of criticism, in the mind’s faith, that the poems are a corrupt170 version of some text in nature, with which they ought to be made to tally165. A rhyme in one of our sonnets171 should not be less pleasing than the iterated nodes of a sea-shell, or the resembling difference of a group of flowers. The pairing of the birds is an idyl, not tedious as our idyls are; a tempest is a rough ode, without falsehood or rant172: a summer, with its harvest sown, reaped, and stored, is an epic173 song, subordinating how many admirably executed parts. Why should not the symmetry and truth that modulate174 these, glide175 into our spirits, and we participate the invention of nature?
This insight, which expresses itself by what is called Imagination, is a very high sort of seeing, which does not come by study, but by the intellect being where and what it sees, by sharing the path, or circuit of things through forms, and so making them translucid to others. The path of things is silent. Will they suffer a speaker to go with them? A spy they will not suffer; a lover, a poet, is the transcendency of their own nature, — him they will suffer. The condition of true naming, on the poet’s part, is his resigning himself to the divine aura which breathes through forms, and accompanying that.
It is a secret which every intellectual man quickly learns, that, beyond the energy of his possessed176 and conscious intellect, he is capable of a new energy (as of an intellect doubled on itself), by abandonment to the nature of things; that, beside his privacy of power as an individual man, there is a great public power, on which he can draw, by unlocking, at all risks, his human doors, and suffering the ethereal tides to roll and circulate through him: then he is caught up into the life of the Universe, his speech is thunder, his thought is law, and his words are universally intelligible177 as the plants and animals. The poet knows that he speaks adequately, then, only when he speaks somewhat wildly, or, “with the flower of the mind;” not with the intellect, used as an organ, but with the intellect released from all service, and suffered to take its direction from its celestial178 life; or, as the ancients were wont179 to express themselves, not with intellect alone, but with the intellect inebriated180 by nectar. As the traveller who has lost his way, throws his reins181 on his horse’s neck, and trusts to the instinct of the animal to find his road, so must we do with the divine animal who carries us through this world. For if in any manner we can stimulate182 this instinct, new passages are opened for us into nature, the mind flows into and through things hardest and highest, and the metamorphosis is possible.
This is the reason why bards love wine, mead143, narcotics183, coffee, tea, opium184, the fumes185 of sandal-wood and tobacco, or whatever other species of animal exhilaration. All men avail themselves of such means as they can, to add this extraordinary power to their normal powers; and to this end they prize conversation, music, pictures, sculpture, dancing, theatres, travelling, war, mobs, fires, gaming, politics, or love, or science, or animal intoxication186, which are several coarser or finer quasi-mechanical substitutes for the true nectar, which is the ravishment of the intellect by coming nearer to the fact. These are auxiliaries187 to the centrifugal tendency of a man, to his passage out into free space, and they help him to escape the custody188 of that body in which he is pent up, and of that jail-yard of individual relations in which he is enclosed. Hence a great number of such as were professionally expressors of Beauty, as painters, poets, musicians, and actors, have been more than others wont to lead a life of pleasure and indulgence; all but the few who received the true nectar; and, as it was a spurious mode of attaining189 freedom, as it was an emancipation190 not into the heavens, but into the freedom of baser places, they were punished for that advantage they won, by a dissipation and deterioration191. But never can any advantage be taken of nature by a trick. The spirit of the world, the great calm presence of the creator, comes not forth192 to the sorceries of opium or of wine. The sublime193 vision comes to the pure and simple soul in a clean and chaste194 body. That is not an inspiration which we owe to narcotics, but some counterfeit195 excitement and fury. Milton says, that the lyric57 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 and plain, 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 knoll196 of sere197 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 covetousness198, and wilt199 stimulate thy jaded200 senses with wine and French coffee, thou shalt find no radiance of wisdom in the lonely waste of the pinewoods.
If the imagination intoxicates201 the poet, it is not inactive in other men. The metamorphosis excites in the beholder an emotion of joy. The use of symbols has a certain power of emancipation and exhilaration for all men. We seem to be touched by a wand, which makes us dance and run about happily, like children. We are like persons who come out of a cave or cellar into the open air. This is the effect on us of tropes, fables202, oracles, and all poetic forms. Poets are thus liberating203 gods. Men have really got a new sense, and found within their world, another world, or nest of worlds; for, the metamorphosis once seen, we divine that it does not stop. I will not now consider how much this makes the charm of algebra204 and the mathematics, which also have their tropes, but it is felt in every definition; as, when Aristotle defines space to be an immovable vessel205, in which things are contained; — or, when Plato defines a line to be a flowing point; or, figure to be a bound of solid; and many the like. What a joyful sense of freedom we have, when Vitruvius announces the old opinion of artists, that no architect can build any house well, who does not know something of anatomy206. When Socrates, in Charmides, tells us that the soul is cured of its maladies by certain incantations, and that these incantations are beautiful reasons, from which temperance is generated in souls; when Plato calls the world an animal; and Timaeus affirms that the plants also are animals; or affirms a man to be a heavenly tree, growing with his root, which is his head, upward; and, as George Chapman, following him, writes, —
“So in our tree of man, whose nervie root
Springs in his top;”
when Orpheus speaks of hoariness207 as “that white flower which marks extreme old age;” when Proclus calls the universe the statue of the intellect; when Chaucer, in his praise of ‘Gentilesse,’ compares good blood in mean condition to fire, which, though carried to the darkest house betwixt this and the mount of Caucasus, will yet hold its natural office, and burn as bright as if twenty thousand men did it behold; when John saw, in the apocalypse, the ruin of the world through evil, and the stars fall from heaven, as the figtree casteth her untimely fruit; when Aesop reports the whole catalogue of common daily relations through the masquerade of birds and beasts; — we take the cheerful hint of the immortality208 of our essence, and its versatile209 habit and escapes, as when the gypsies say, “it is in vain to hang them, they cannot die.”
The poets are thus liberating gods. The ancient British bards had for the title of their order, “Those who are free throughout the world.” They are free, and they make free. An imaginative book renders us much more service at first, by stimulating210 us through its tropes, than afterward211, when we arrive at the precise sense of the author. I think nothing is of any value in books, excepting the transcendental and extraordinary. If a man is inflamed212 and carried away by his thought, to that degree that he forgets the authors and the public, and heeds213 only this one dream, which holds him like an insanity214, let me read his paper, and you may have all the arguments and histories and criticism. All the value which attaches to Pythagoras, Paracelsus, Cornelius Agrippa, Cardan, Kepler, Swedenborg, Schelling, Oken, or any other who introduces questionable215 facts into his cosmogony, as angels, devils, magic, astrology, palmistry, mesmerism, and so on, is the certificate we have of departure from routine, and that here is a new witness. That also is the best success in conversation, the magic of liberty, which puts the world, like a ball, in our hands. How cheap even the liberty then seems; how mean to study, when an emotion communicates to the intellect the power to sap and upheave nature: how great the perspective! nations, times, systems, enter and disappear, like threads in tapestry216 of large figure and many colors; dream delivers us to dream, and, while the drunkenness lasts, we will sell our bed, our philosophy, our religion, in our opulence217.
There is good reason why we should prize this liberation. The fate of the poor shepherd, who, blinded and lost in the snow-storm, perishes in a drift within a few feet of his cottage door, is an emblem112 of the state of man. On the brink218 of the waters of life and truth, we are miserably219 dying. The inaccessibleness of every thought but that we are in, is wonderful. What if you come near to it, — you are as remote, when you are nearest, as when you are farthest. Every thought is also a prison; every heaven is also a prison. Therefore we love the poet, the inventor, who in any form, whether in an ode, or in an action, or in looks and behavior, has yielded us a new thought. He unlocks our chains, and admits us to a new scene.
This emancipation is dear to all men, and the power to impart it, as it must come from greater depth and scope of thought, is a measure of intellect. Therefore all books of the imagination endure, all which ascend to that truth, that the writer sees nature beneath him, and uses it as his exponent220. Every verse or sentence, possessing this virtue, will take care of its own immortality. The religions of the world are the ejaculations of a few imaginative men.
But the quality of the imagination is to flow, and not to freeze. The poet did not stop at the color, or the form, but read their meaning; neither may he rest in this meaning, but he makes the same objects exponents221 of his new thought. Here is the difference betwixt the poet and the mystic, that the last nails a symbol to one sense, which was a true sense for a moment, but soon becomes old and false. For all symbols are fluxional; all language is vehicular and transitive, and is good, as ferries and horses are, for conveyance222, not as farms and houses are, for homestead. Mysticism consists in the mistake of an accidental and individual symbol for an universal one. The morning-redness happens to be the favorite meteor to the eyes of Jacob Behmen, and comes to stand to him for truth and faith; and he believes should stand for the same realities to every reader. But the first reader prefers as naturally the symbol of a mother and child, or a gardener and his bulb, or a jeweller polishing a gem223. Either of these, or of a myriad224 more, are equally good to the person to whom they are significant. Only they must be held lightly, and be very willingly translated into the equivalent terms which others use. And the mystic must be steadily225 told, — All that you say is just as true without the tedious use of that symbol as with it. Let us have a little algebra, instead of this trite226 rhetoric227, — universal signs, instead of these village symbols, — and we shall both be gainers. The history of hierarchies228 seems to show, that all religious error consisted in making the symbol too stark229 and solid, and, at last, nothing but an excess of the organ of language.
Swedenborg, of all men in the recent ages, stands eminently230 for the translator of nature into thought. I do not know the man in history to whom things stood so uniformly for words. Before him the metamorphosis continually plays. Everything on which his eye rests, obeys the impulses of moral nature. The figs231 become grapes whilst he eats them. When some of his angels affirmed a truth, the laurel twig232 which they held blossomed in their hands. The noise which, at a distance, appeared like gnashing and thumping233, on coming nearer was found to be the voice of disputants. The men, in one of his visions, seen in heavenly light, appeared like dragons, and seemed in darkness: but, to each other, they appeared as men, and, when the light from heaven shone into their cabin, they complained of the darkness, and were compelled to shut the window that they might see.
There was this perception in him, which makes the poet or seer, an object of awe234 and terror, namely, that the same man, or society of men, may wear one aspect to themselves and their companions, and a different aspect to higher intelligences. Certain priests, whom he describes as conversing235 very learnedly together, appeared to the children, who were at some distance, like dead horses: and many the like misappearances. And instantly the mind inquires, whether these fishes under the bridge, yonder oxen in the pasture, those dogs in the yard, are immutably236 fishes, oxen, and dogs, or only so appear to me, and perchance to themselves appear upright men; and whether I appear as a man to all eyes. The Bramins and Pythagoras propounded237 the same question, and if any poet has witnessed the transformation238, he doubtless found it in harmony with various experiences. We have all seen changes as considerable in wheat and caterpillars239. He is the poet, and shall draw us with love and terror, who sees, through the flowing vest, the firm nature, and can declare it.
I look in vain for the poet whom I describe. We do not, with sufficient plainness, or sufficient profoundness, address ourselves to life, nor dare we chaunt our own times and social circumstance. If we filled the day with bravery, we should not shrink from celebrating it. Time and nature yield us many gifts, but not yet the timely man, the new religion, the reconciler, whom all things await. Dante’s praise is, that he dared to write his autobiography240 in colossal241 cipher242, or into universality. We have yet had no genius in America, with tyrannous eye, which knew the value of our incomparable materials, and saw, in the barbarism and materialism of the times, another carnival243 of the same gods whose picture he so much admires in Homer; then in the middle age; then in Calvinism. Banks and tariffs244, the newspaper and caucus245, methodism and unitarianism, are flat and dull to dull people, but rest on the same foundations of wonder as the town of Troy, and the temple of Delphos, and are as swiftly passing away. Our logrolling, our stumps246 and their politics, our fisheries, our Negroes, and Indians, our boasts, and our repudiations, the wrath247 of rogues248, and the pusillanimity249 of honest men, the northern trade, the southern planting, the western clearing, Oregon, and Texas, are yet unsung. Yet America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres. If I have not found that excellent combination of gifts in my countrymen which I seek, neither could I aid myself to fix the idea of the poet by reading now and then in Chalmers’s collection of five centuries of English poets. These are wits, more than poets, though there have been poets among them. But when we adhere to the ideal of the poet, we have our difficulties even with Milton and Homer. Milton is too literary, and Homer too literal and historical.
But I am not wise enough for a national criticism, and must use the old largeness a little longer, to discharge my errand from the muse9 to the poet concerning his art.
Art is the path of the creator to his work. The paths, or methods, are ideal and eternal, though few men ever see them, not the artist himself for years, or for a lifetime, unless he come into the conditions. The painter, the sculptor, the composer, the epic rhapsodist, the orator250, all partake one desire, namely, to express themselves symmetrically and abundantly, not dwarfishly and fragmentarily. They found or put themselves in certain conditions, as, the painter and sculptor before some impressive human figures; the orator, into the assembly of the people; and the others, in such scenes as each has found exciting to his intellect; and each presently feels the new desire. He hears a voice, he sees a beckoning251. Then he is apprised, with wonder, what herds252 of daemons hem29 him in. He can no more rest; he says, with the old painter, “By God, it is in me, and must go forth of me.” He pursues a beauty, half seen, which flies before him. The poet pours out verses in every solitude253. Most of the things he says are conventional, no doubt; but by and by he says something which is original and beautiful. That charms him. He would say nothing else but such things. In our way of talking, we say, ‘That is yours, this is mine;’ but the poet knows well that it is not his; that it is as strange and beautiful to him as to you; he would fain hear the like eloquence254 at length. Once having tasted this immortal ichor, he cannot have enough of it, and, as an admirable creative power exists in these intellections, it is of the last importance that these things get spoken. What a little of all we know is said! What drops of all the sea of our science are baled up! and by what accident it is that these are exposed, when so many secrets sleep in nature! Hence the necessity of speech and song; hence these throbs255 and heart-beatings in the orator, at the door of the assembly, to the end, namely, that thought may be ejaculated as Logos, or Word.
Doubt not, O poet, but persist. Say, ‘It is in me, and shall out.’ Stand there, baulked and dumb, stuttering and stammering256, hissed257 and hooted258, stand and strive, until, at last, rage draw out of thee that dream-power which every night shows thee is thine own; a power transcending259 all limit and privacy, and by virtue of which a man is the conductor of the whole river of electricity. Nothing walks, or creeps, or grows, or exists, which must not in turn arise and walk before him as exponent of his meaning. Comes he to that power, his genius is no longer exhaustible. All the creatures, by pairs and by tribes, pour into his mind as into a Noah’s ark, to come forth again to people a new world. This is like the stock of air for our respiration260, or for the combustion261 of our fireplace, not a measure of gallons, but the entire atmosphere if wanted. And therefore the rich poets, as Homer, Chaucer, Shakspeare, and Raphael, have obviously no limits to their works, except the limits of their lifetime, and resemble a mirror carried through the street, ready to render an image of every created thing.
O poet! a new nobility is conferred in groves262 and pastures, and not in castles, or by the sword-blade, any longer. The conditions are hard, but equal. Thou shalt leave the world, and know the muse only. Thou shalt not know any longer the times, customs, graces, politics, or opinions of men, but shalt take all from the muse. For the time of towns is tolled263 from the world by funereal264 chimes, but in nature the universal hours are counted by succeeding tribes of animals and plants, and by growth of joy on joy. God wills also that thou abdicate265 a manifold and duplex life, and that thou be content that others speak for thee. Others shall be thy gentlemen, and shall represent all courtesy and worldly life for thee; others shall do the great and resounding266 actions also. Thou shalt lie close hid with nature, and canst not be afforded to the Capitol or the Exchange. The world is full of renunciations and apprenticeships, and this is thine: thou must pass for a fool and a churl267 for a long season. This is the screen and sheath in which Pan has protected his well-beloved flower, and thou shalt be known only to thine own, and they shall console thee with tenderest love. And thou shalt not be able to rehearse the names of thy friends in thy verse, for an old shame before the holy ideal. And this is the reward: that the ideal shall be real to thee, and the impressions of the actual world shall fall like summer rain, copious268, but not troublesome, to thy invulnerable essence. Thou shalt have the whole land for thy park and manor269, the sea for thy bath and navigation, without tax and without envy; the woods and the rivers thou shalt own; and thou shalt possess that wherein others are only tenants270 and boarders. Thou true land-lord! sea-lord! air-lord! Wherever snow falls, or water flows, or birds fly, wherever day and night meet in twilight271, wherever the blue heaven is hung by clouds, or sown with stars, wherever are forms with transparent boundaries, wherever are outlets272 into celestial space, wherever is danger, and awe, and love, there is Beauty, plenteous as rain, shed for thee, and though thou shouldest walk the world over, thou shalt not be able to find a condition inopportune or ignoble273.
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moody
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| adj.心情不稳的，易怒的，喜怒无常的 | |
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joyful
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| adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的 | |
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bard
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| n.吟游诗人 | |
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bards
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| n.诗人( bard的名词复数 ) | |
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esteemed
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| adj.受人尊敬的v.尊敬( esteem的过去式和过去分词 )；敬重；认为；以为 | |
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inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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muse
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| n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感 | |
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doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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dependence
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| n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属 | |
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germination
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| n.萌芽，发生；萌发；生芽；催芽 | |
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volition
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| n.意志；决意 | |
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contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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sensuous
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| adj.激发美感的；感官的，感觉上的 | |
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transmuted
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| v.使变形，使变质，把…变成…( transmute的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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apprises
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| v.告知，通知( apprise的第三人称单数 )；评价 | |
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reveres
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| v.崇敬，尊崇，敬畏( revere的第三人称单数 ) | |
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beholding
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| v.看，注视( behold的现在分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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avarice
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| n.贪婪；贪心 | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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standing
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minors
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| n.未成年人( minor的名词复数 )；副修科目；小公司；[逻辑学]小前提v.[主美国英语]副修，选修，兼修( minor的第三人称单数 ) | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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obstruction
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| n.阻塞，堵塞；障碍物 | |
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hem
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| n.贴边，镶边；vt.缝贴边；(in)包围，限制 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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poetically
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| adv.有诗意地，用韵文 | |
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Pluto
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| n.冥王星 | |
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Neptune
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| n.海王星 | |
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essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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surmounted
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| 战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
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analyzed
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| v.分析( analyze的过去式和过去分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析 | |
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adorned
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| [计]被修饰的 | |
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potentate
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| n.统治者；君主 | |
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infested
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| adj.为患的，大批滋生的（常与with搭配）v.害虫、野兽大批出没于( infest的过去式和过去分词 )；遍布于 | |
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cant
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| n.斜穿，黑话，猛扔 | |
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materialism
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| n.［哲］唯物主义，唯物论；物质至上 | |
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disparages
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| v.轻视( disparage的第三人称单数 )；贬低；批评；非难 | |
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costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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sage
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| n.圣人，哲人；adj.贤明的，明智的 | |
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rites
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| 仪式，典礼( rite的名词复数 ) | |
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penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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primal
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| adj.原始的；最重要的 | |
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cadences
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| n.（声音的）抑扬顿挫( cadence的名词复数 )；节奏；韵律；调子 | |
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transcripts
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| n.抄本（ transcript的名词复数 ）；转写本；文字本；副本 | |
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52
credentials
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| n.证明，资格，证明书，证件 | |
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53
foretold
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| v.预言，预示( foretell的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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54
teller
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| n.银行出纳员；(选举)计票员 | |
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55
privy
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| adj.私用的；隐密的 | |
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56
beholder
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| n.观看者，旁观者 | |
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57
lyric
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| n.抒情诗，歌词；adj.抒情的 | |
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58
lyrics
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| n.歌词 | |
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59
tunes
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| n.曲调，曲子( tune的名词复数 )v.调音( tune的第三人称单数 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调 | |
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60
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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61
latitude
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| n.纬度，行动或言论的自由(范围)，(pl.)地区 | |
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62
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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63
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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64
adorns
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| 装饰，佩带( adorn的第三人称单数 ) | |
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65
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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66
rambling
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| adj.[建]凌乱的，杂乱的 | |
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67
credulous
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| adj.轻信的，易信的 | |
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68
aurora
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| n.极光 | |
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69
stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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70
animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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71
oracles
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| 神示所( oracle的名词复数 )； 神谕； 圣贤； 哲人 | |
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72
advent
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| n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临 | |
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73
ramble
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| v.漫步，漫谈，漫游；n.漫步，闲谈，蔓延 | |
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74
veracity
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| n.诚实 | |
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75
juggle
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| v.变戏法，纂改，欺骗，同时做；n.玩杂耍，纂改，花招 | |
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76
attests
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| v.证明( attest的第三人称单数 )；证实；声称…属实；使宣誓 | |
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77
confide
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| v.向某人吐露秘密 | |
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78
opaque
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| adj.不透光的；不反光的，不传导的；晦涩的 | |
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79
transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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80
renovate
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| vt.更新，革新，刷新 | |
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81
postponed
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| vt.& vi.延期，缓办，（使）延迟vt.把…放在次要地位；[语]把…放在后面（或句尾）vi.（疟疾等）延缓发作（或复发） | |
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82
novice
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|
| adj.新手的，生手的 | |
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83
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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84
fowl
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| n.家禽，鸡，禽肉 | |
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85
thither
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|
| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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86
worthier
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|
| 应得某事物( worthy的比较级 )； 值得做某事； 可尊敬的； 有（某人或事物）的典型特征 | |
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87
fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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88
procure
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| vt.获得，取得，促成；vi.拉皮条 | |
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89
amiable
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|
| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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90
speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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91
warily
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| adv.留心地 | |
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92
reverently
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| adv.虔诚地 | |
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93
unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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94
retinue
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| n.侍从；随员 | |
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95
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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96
splendor
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| n.光彩；壮丽，华丽；显赫，辉煌 | |
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97
abreast
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| adv.并排地；跟上(时代)的步伐，与…并进地 | |
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98
elevation
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| n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高 | |
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99
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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100
brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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101
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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102
hover
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| vi.翱翔，盘旋；徘徊；彷徨，犹豫 | |
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103
fable
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| n.寓言；童话；神话 | |
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104
susceptible
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| adj.过敏的，敏感的；易动感情的，易受感动的 | |
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105
enchantments
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| n.魅力( enchantment的名词复数 )；迷人之处；施魔法；着魔 | |
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106
fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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107
grooms
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| n.新郎( groom的名词复数 )；马夫v.照料或梳洗（马等）( groom的第三人称单数 )；使做好准备；训练；（给动物）擦洗 | |
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108
certifying
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| （尤指书面）证明( certify的现在分词 )； 发证书给…； 证明（某人）患有精神病； 颁发（或授予）专业合格证书 | |
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109
overflowed
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| 溢出的 | |
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110
attachment
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| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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111
emblems
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| n.象征，标记( emblem的名词复数 ) | |
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112
emblem
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| n.象征，标志；徽章 | |
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113
intoxicated
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| 喝醉的，极其兴奋的 | |
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114
compute
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| v./n.计算，估计 | |
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115
loom
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|
| n.织布机，织机；v.隐现，(危险、忧虑等)迫近 | |
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116
leopards
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| n.豹( leopard的名词复数 )；本性难移 | |
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117
tingle
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| vi.感到刺痛，感到激动；n.刺痛，激动 | |
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118
exterior
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| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
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119
symbolic
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| adj.象征性的，符号的，象征主义的 | |
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120
apprised
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| v.告知，通知( apprise的过去式和过去分词 )；评价 | |
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121
deity
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| n.神，神性；被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
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122
omniscient
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| adj.无所不知的；博识的 | |
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123
piety
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| n.虔诚，虔敬 | |
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124
purges
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| 清除异己( purge的名词复数 )； 整肃（行动）； 清洗； 泻药 | |
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125
pungent
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| adj.（气味、味道）刺激性的，辛辣的；尖锐的 | |
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126
lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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127
utensil
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| n.器皿，用具 | |
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128
covet
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| vt.垂涎；贪图(尤指属于他人的东西) | |
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129
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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130
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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131
mythology
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| n.神话，神话学，神话集 | |
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132
lameness
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| n. 跛, 瘸, 残废 | |
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133
violations
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| 违反( violation的名词复数 )； 冒犯； 违反（行为、事例）； 强奸 | |
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134
consecrated
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|
| adj.神圣的，被视为神圣的v.把…奉为神圣，给…祝圣( consecrate的过去式和过去分词 )；奉献 | |
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135
gliding
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| v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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136
appreciable
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|
| adj.明显的，可见的，可估量的，可觉察的 | |
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137
complacent
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| adj.自满的；自鸣得意的 | |
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138
dwarf
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| n.矮子，侏儒，矮小的动植物；vt.使…矮小 | |
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139
impelling
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| adj.迫使性的，强有力的v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的现在分词 ) | |
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140
ascend
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|
| vi.渐渐上升，升高；vt.攀登，登上 | |
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141
gestation
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| n.怀孕；酝酿 | |
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142
animation
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| n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作 | |
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143
mead
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| n.蜂蜜酒 | |
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144
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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145
muses
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的第三人称单数 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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146
symbolized
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| v.象征，作为…的象征( symbolize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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147
etymologist
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| n.语源学 | |
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148
limestone
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| n.石灰石 | |
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149
fungus
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| n.真菌，真菌类植物 | |
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150
countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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151
spores
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| n.（细菌、苔藓、蕨类植物）孢子( spore的名词复数 )v.（细菌、苔藓、蕨类植物）孢子( spore的第三人称单数 ) | |
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152
sleepless
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| adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的 | |
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153
progeny
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| n.后代，子孙；结果 | |
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154
vivacious
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| adj.活泼的，快活的 | |
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155
immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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156
clamorous
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| adj.吵闹的，喧哗的 | |
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157
censures
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| v.指责，非难，谴责( censure的第三人称单数 ) | |
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158
swarm
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| n.(昆虫)等一大群；vi.成群飞舞；蜂拥而入 | |
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159
devour
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| v.吞没；贪婪地注视或谛听，贪读；使着迷 | |
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160
sculptor
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| n.雕刻家，雕刻家 | |
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161
eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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162
tranquillity
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| n. 平静, 安静 | |
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163
chisel
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| n.凿子；v.用凿子刻，雕，凿 | |
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164
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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165
tally
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|
| n.计数器，记分，一致，测量；vt.计算，记录，使一致；vi.计算，记分，一致 | |
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166
liberated
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| a.无拘束的，放纵的 | |
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167
aspiration
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| n.志向，志趣抱负；渴望；(语)送气音；吸出 | |
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168
diluting
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| 稀释，冲淡( dilute的现在分词 )； 削弱，使降低效果 | |
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169
legitimation
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| n. 合法, 合法化 | |
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170
corrupt
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| v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的 | |
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171
sonnets
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| n.十四行诗( sonnet的名词复数 ) | |
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172
rant
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| v.咆哮；怒吼；n.大话；粗野的话 | |
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173
epic
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| n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的 | |
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174
modulate
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| v.调整，调节(音的强弱)；变调 | |
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175
glide
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| n./v.溜，滑行；(时间)消逝 | |
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176
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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177
intelligible
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| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
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178
celestial
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| adj.天体的；天上的 | |
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179
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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180
inebriated
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| adj.酒醉的 | |
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181
reins
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| 感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带 | |
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182
stimulate
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| vt.刺激，使兴奋；激励，使…振奋 | |
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183
narcotics
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| n.麻醉药( narcotic的名词复数 )；毒品；毒 | |
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184
opium
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| n.鸦片；adj.鸦片的 | |
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185
fumes
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| n.(强烈而刺激的)气味，气体 | |
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186
intoxication
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| n.wild excitement;drunkenness；poisoning | |
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187
auxiliaries
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| n.助动词 ( auxiliary的名词复数 )；辅助工，辅助人员 | |
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188
custody
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| n.监护，照看，羁押，拘留 | |
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189
attaining
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的现在分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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190
emancipation
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| n.（从束缚、支配下）解放 | |
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191
deterioration
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| n.退化；恶化；变坏 | |
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192
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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193
sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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194
chaste
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| adj.贞洁的；有道德的；善良的；简朴的 | |
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195
counterfeit
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| vt.伪造，仿造；adj.伪造的，假冒的 | |
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196
knoll
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| n.小山，小丘 | |
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197
sere
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| adj.干枯的；n.演替系列 | |
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198
covetousness
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199
wilt
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| v.(使)植物凋谢或枯萎；(指人)疲倦，衰弱 | |
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200
jaded
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| adj.精疲力竭的；厌倦的；（因过饱或过多而）腻烦的；迟钝的 | |
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201
intoxicates
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| 使喝醉（intoxicate的第三人称单数形式） | |
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202
fables
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| n.寓言( fable的名词复数 )；神话，传说 | |
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203
liberating
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| 解放，释放( liberate的现在分词 ) | |
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204
algebra
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| n.代数学 | |
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205
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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206
anatomy
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| n.解剖学，解剖；功能，结构，组织 | |
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207
hoariness
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| n.灰白，老年；古老 | |
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208
immortality
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| n.不死，不朽 | |
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209
versatile
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| adj.通用的，万用的；多才多艺的，多方面的 | |
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210
stimulating
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| adj.有启发性的，能激发人思考的 | |
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211
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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212
inflamed
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| adj.发炎的，红肿的v.（使）变红，发怒，过热( inflame的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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213
heeds
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| n.留心，注意，听从( heed的名词复数 )v.听某人的劝告，听从( heed的第三人称单数 ) | |
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214
insanity
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| n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐 | |
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215
questionable
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| adj.可疑的，有问题的 | |
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216
tapestry
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| n.挂毯，丰富多采的画面 | |
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217
opulence
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| n.财富，富裕 | |
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218
brink
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| n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿 | |
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219
miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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220
exponent
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| n.倡导者，拥护者；代表人物；指数，幂 | |
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221
exponents
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| n.倡导者( exponent的名词复数 )；说明者；指数；能手 | |
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222
conveyance
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| n.(不动产等的)转让，让与；转让证书；传送；运送；表达；（正）运输工具 | |
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223
gem
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| n.宝石，珠宝；受爱戴的人 [同]jewel | |
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224
myriad
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| adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量 | |
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225
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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226
trite
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| adj.陈腐的 | |
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227
rhetoric
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| n.修辞学，浮夸之言语 | |
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228
hierarchies
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| 等级制度( hierarchy的名词复数 )； 统治集团； 领导层； 层次体系 | |
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229
stark
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| adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地 | |
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230
eminently
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| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
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231
figs
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| figures 数字，图形，外形 | |
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232
twig
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| n.小树枝，嫩枝；v.理解 | |
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233
thumping
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| adj.重大的，巨大的；重击的；尺码大的；极好的adv.极端地；非常地v.重击(thump的现在分词)；狠打；怦怦地跳；全力支持 | |
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234
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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235
conversing
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的现在分词 ) | |
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236
immutably
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| adv.不变地，永恒地 | |
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237
propounded
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| v.提出（问题、计划等）供考虑[讨论]，提议( propound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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238
transformation
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| n.变化；改造；转变 | |
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239
caterpillars
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| n.毛虫( caterpillar的名词复数 )；履带 | |
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240
autobiography
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| n.自传 | |
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241
colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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242
cipher
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| n.零；无影响力的人；密码 | |
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243
carnival
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| n.嘉年华会，狂欢，狂欢节，巡回表演 | |
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244
tariffs
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| 关税制度； 关税( tariff的名词复数 )； 关税表； （旅馆或饭店等的）收费表； 量刑标准 | |
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245
caucus
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| n.秘密会议；干部会议；v.（参加）干部开会议 | |
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246
stumps
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| （被砍下的树的）树桩( stump的名词复数 )； 残肢； （板球三柱门的）柱； 残余部分 | |
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247
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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248
rogues
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| n.流氓( rogue的名词复数 )；无赖；调皮捣蛋的人；离群的野兽 | |
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249
pusillanimity
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| n.无气力，胆怯 | |
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250
orator
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| n.演说者，演讲者，雄辩家 | |
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251
beckoning
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| adj.引诱人的，令人心动的v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的现在分词 ) | |
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252
herds
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| 兽群( herd的名词复数 )； 牧群； 人群； 群众 | |
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253
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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254
eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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255
throbs
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| 体内的跳动( throb的名词复数 ) | |
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256
stammering
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的现在分词 ) | |
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257
hissed
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| 发嘶嘶声( hiss的过去式和过去分词 )； 发嘘声表示反对 | |
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258
hooted
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| （使）作汽笛声响，作汽车喇叭声( hoot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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259
transcending
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| 超出或超越（经验、信念、描写能力等）的范围( transcend的现在分词 )； 优于或胜过… | |
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260
respiration
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| n.呼吸作用；一次呼吸；植物光合作用 | |
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261
combustion
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| n.燃烧；氧化；骚动 | |
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262
groves
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| 树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 ) | |
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263
tolled
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| 鸣钟（toll的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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264
funereal
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| adj.悲哀的；送葬的 | |
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265
abdicate
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| v.让位，辞职，放弃 | |
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266
resounding
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| adj. 响亮的 | |
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267
churl
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| n.吝啬之人；粗鄙之人 | |
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268
copious
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| adj.丰富的，大量的 | |
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269
manor
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| n.庄园，领地 | |
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270
tenants
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| n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者 | |
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271
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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272
outlets
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| n.出口( outlet的名词复数 )；经销店；插座；廉价经销店 | |
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273
ignoble
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| adj.不光彩的，卑鄙的；可耻的 | |
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