Jones Very
Jones Very
Jones Verywas an American poet, essayist, clergyman, and mystic associated with the American Transcendentalism movement. He was known as a scholar of William Shakespeare and many of his poems were Shakespearean sonnets. He was well-known and respected amongst the Transcendentalists, though he had a mental breakdown early in his career...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
CountryUnited States of America
men long world
As long as man labors for a physical existence, though an act of necessity almost, he is yet natural; it is life, though that of this world, for which he instinctively works.
banks beautiful deserve last objects onward rich rolls scarcely seems stream surround waters
The stream of life, - which, in other men, obstructed and at last stationary as the objects that surround it, seems scarcely to deserve the name,- in them rolls ever onward its rich and life-giving waters as if unconscious of the beautiful banks it has overflowed with fertility.
age beauty conception dwell forms great heroism iliad minds origin plan poet prove revealing simplest
The simplest conception of the origin and plan of the Iliad must, we think, prove the most correct. It originated, doubtless, in that desire, which every great poet must especially feel, of revealing to his age forms of nobler beauty and heroism than dwell in the minds of those around him.
communion general goes heart hoarding holding instead momentary strangers universal wonder
Do we wonder then, that, as this momentary petrifaction of the heart goes on, we are every day more and more strangers in this world of love, holding no communion with the Universal Parent, and hoarding up instead of distributing His general gifts?
human impression mind towards
The advance, which the human mind had made towards civilization, prevented Virgil from making a like impression on his own age.
american-poet human rest worthy
Often and often must he have thought, that, to be or not to be forever, was a question, which must be settled; as it is the foundation, and the only foundation upon which we feel that there can rest one thought, one feeling, or one purpose worthy of a human soul.
cry epic move poets present raise song stand true
The poets of the present day who would raise the epic song cry out, like Archimedes of old, "give us a place to stand on and we will move the world." This is, as we conceive, the true difficulty.
beneath calls feet frequent great groves hear linger passed places pleasing roof sabbath tree whom
IT is pleasing to frequent the places from which the feet of those whom this world calls great have passed away, to see the same groves and streams that they saw, to hear the same sabbath bells, to linger beneath the roof under which they lived, and be shaded by the same tree which shaded them.
direct frame iron parts perishable primitive softer stand time veins work
It is not to the softer and more perishable parts of his massy mind, I would direct my attention; but to those veins of a primitive formation, which, now that time has loosened and removed all else, still stand out as the iron frame work of his being.
american-poet changing external flows indeed matters onward prominent
These are matters of external history. They are indeed prominent objects, often changing and giving a new direction to the current; but they tell us not why it flows onward and will ever flow.
rain fall roots
The later rain,--it falls in anxious haste Upon the sun-dried fields and branches bare, Loosening with searching drops the rigid waste, As if it would each root's lost strength repair.
reality world next
Macbeth is contending with the realities of this world, Hamlet with those of the next.
wrestling soul enemy
From the wrestling of his own soul with the great enemy, comes that depth and mystery which startles us in Hamlet.
relationship greatness unions
We feel unsatisfied until we know ourselves akin even with that greatness which made the spots on which it rested hallowed; and until, by our own lives, and by converse with the thoughts they have bequeathed us, we feel that union and relationship of the spirit which we seek.