themselves and their companions, and a different aspect
to higher intelligences. Certain priests, whom he
describes as conversing 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 immutably 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 propounded the same question,
and if any poet has witnessed the transformation he
doubtless found it in harmony with various experiences.
We have all seen changes as considerable in wheat and
caterpillars. 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 autobiography in colossal
cipher, 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