Ralph Waldo Emerson – The Poet

For poetry was all written before time was, and whenever we are so finely organised that we can penetrate into that region where the air is music, we hear those primal 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 mis-scribe the poem.

The men of more delicate ear write down these cadences more faithfully and these transcripts, though imperfect, become the songs of the nations.  For nature is as truly beautiful as it is good, …......  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 credentials of the poet are that he announces that which no man foretold.  He is the true and only doctor; he knows and feels; he is the only teller of news, for he was present and privy to the appearance which he describes.  He is beholder of ideas and an utterer of the necessary and causal.