Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/68

 This is noble stoicism. Among Emerson's poems are some which bear witness to a less noble spirit,—to a self-consciousness which rejoices in its contempt of the world; that knows itself to have enough, whilst the world perishes of hunger; a something which reminds one of the answer of the ant to the grasshopper, in La Fontaine's fable. But this shadow passes away, as do all clouds, from the clear heaven of the poet, having not there their abiding home. One strongly prominent feature in him is his love of the strong and the great. Thus he speaks in his poem, “The World-Soul:”—

But nobler even than this is the song of our Geijer:—

Of this light Emerson knows nothing. Emerson has, in other respects, many points of resemblance with Geijer, but he stands as much below him as heathenism stands below Christianity.

I cannot, perhaps, do full justice to Emerson's poems by my translation; I never was very clever at translation; and I fancy it almost impossible to render the poetic element of Emerson into another tongue, because it is of