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MEN AND WOMEN.
184-, 185--.
-----------------
" TRANSCENDENTALISM.- A POEM IN
TWELVE BOOKS."
STOP playing, poet! May a brother speak?
'T is you speak, that's your error. Song's our art:
Whereas you please to speak these naked thoughts
Instead of draping them in sights and sounds.
--True thoughts, good thoughts, thoughts fit to
treasure up!
But why such long prolusion and display,
Such turning and adjustment of the harp,
And taking it upon your breast, at length,
Only to speak dry words across its strings?
Stark-naked thought is in request enough:
Speak prose and hollo it till Europe hears!
The six-foot Swiss tube, braced about with bark,
Which helps the hunter's voice from Alp to Alp--
Exchange our harp for that,--who hinders you?
174 MEN AND WOMEN
But here's your fault; grown men want thought, you
think;
Thought's what they mean by verse, and seek in verse
Boys seek for images and melody, . . .
