Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/161

 aw. 26.] TO R. W. EMERSON. 137

hits the nail on the head. It will taste sour to their palates at first, no doubt, but it will bear a sweet fruit at last. I like the poetry, espe cially the Autumn verses. They ring true. Though I am quite weather-beaten with poetry, having weathered so many epics of late. The &quot; Sweep Ho ! &quot; sounds well this way. But I have a good deal of fault to find with your &quot; Ode to Beauty.&quot; The tune is altogether unworthy of the thoughts. You slope too quickly to the rhyme, as if that trick had better be performed as soon as possible, or as if you stood over the line with a hatchet, and chopped off the verses as they came out, some short and some long. But give us a long reel, and we 11 cut it up to suit ourselves. It sounds like parody. &quot; Thee knew I of old,&quot; &quot;Remediless thirst,&quot; are some of those stereotyped lines. I am frequently re minded, I believe, of Jane Taylor s &quot; Philoso pher s Scales,&quot; and how the world

&quot; Flew out with a bounce,&quot;

which

&quot; Yerked the philosopher out of his cell ; &quot;

or else of

&quot; From the climes of the sun all war-worn and weary.&quot;

I had rather have the thought come ushered with a flourish of oaths and curses. Yet I love your poetry as I do little else that is near and