Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/53

 beautiful songs, in which burns a strong and noble patriotism, is directed against a political measure in Congress favourable to the maintenance of slavery in the United States. By this and many anti-slavery songs has this young poet taken his place among the leaders of that great party in the country which calls itself Abolitionist, and which insists upon the abolition of slavery. He must express himself in verse—he does not make the verse, he sings it, and in his song there is that overflowing sentiment which makes the heart overflow, and the mind spread forth her wings.

Waldo Emerson, rather a philosopher than poet, yet poetical in his prose philosophical essays, strikes me as a new and peculiar character, the most unusual of the three. He seems to me as an American Thorild, who by his own strong, powerful nature would transform the world, seeking for law and inspiration merely within his own breast. Strong and pure, self-collected and calm, but at the same time fantastical, he puts forth from his transcendental point of view aphorisms on nature and history, on God (whom he does not regard as a personal God, but as a superior soul in harmony with laws), and on men, criticising men and their works from the ideal of the highest truth and the highest beauty. “The world,” says Emerson, “has not seen a man,” and he looks forward with longing to that man, the man of the New World, in whose advent he believes. What this new man shall really be, and what he is to do, is somewhat undecided,—merely that he shall be true and beautiful, and further, I suspect, he must be very handsome and tall of stature, if he is to find favour with Emerson, who is himself, they say, a man of singular beauty, and who regards any personal defect as a sort of crime. The new man regards no laws but those within his own breast; but there he finds the unfalsified wells of truth and beauty. The new man believes in himself alone; he demands