C. shows you how every-day matters unite
With the dim transdiurnal recesses of night,—­
While E., in a plain, preternatural way,
Makes mysteries matters of mere every day;
C. draws all his characters quite a la Fuseli,—­
Not sketching their bundles of muscles and thews illy, 600
He paints with a brush so untamed and profuse,
They seem nothing but bundles of muscles and thews;
E. is rather like Flaxman, lines strait and severe,
And a colorless outline, but full, round, and clear;—­
To the men he thinks worthy he frankly accords
The design of a white marble statue in words. 
C. labors to get at the centre, and then
Take a reckoning from there of his actions and men;
E. calmly assumes the said centre as granted,
And, given himself, has whatever is wanted. 610

’He has imitators in scores, who omit
No part of the man but his wisdom and wit,—­
Who go carefully o’er the sky-blue of his brain,
And when he has skimmed it once, skim it again;
If at all they resemble him, you may be sure it is
Because their shoals mirror his mists and obscurities,
As a mud-puddle seems deep as heaven for a minute,
While a cloud that floats o’er is reflected within it.

’There comes——­, for instance; to see him’s rare sport, Tread in Emerson’s tracks with legs painfully short; 620 How he jumps, how he strains, and gets red in the face.  To keep step with the mystagogue’s natural pace!  He follows as close as a stick to a rocket, His fingers exploring the prophet’s each pocket.  Fie, for shame, brother bard; with good fruit of your own, Can’t you let Neighbor Emerson’s orchards alone?  Besides, ’tis no use, you’ll not find e’en a core,—­ ——­ has picked up all the windfalls before.  They might strip every tree, and E. never would catch ’em, His Hesperides have no rude dragon to watch ’em; 630 When they send him a dishful, and ask him to try ’em, He never suspects how the sly rogues came by ’em; He wonders why ’tis there are none such his trees on, And thinks ’em the best he has tasted this season.

’Yonder, calm as a cloud, Alcott stalks in a dream,
And fancies himself in thy groves, Academe,
With the Parthenon nigh, and the olive-trees o’er him,
And never a fact to perplex him or bore him,
With a snug room at Plato’s when night comes, to walk to,
And people from morning till midnight to talk to, 640
And from midnight till morning, nor snore in their listening;—­
So he muses, his face with the joy of it glistening,
For his highest conceit of a happiest state is
Where they’d live upon acorns, and hear him talk gratis;
And indeed, I believe, no man ever talked better,—­
Each sentence hangs perfectly poised to a letter;
He seems piling words, but there’s royal dust hid
In the heart of each sky-piercing pyramid. 
While he talks he is great, but goes out like a taper,
If you shut him up closely with pen, ink, and paper; 650
Yet his fingers itch for ’em from morning till night,
And he thinks he does wrong if he don’t always write;
In this, as in all things, a lamb among men,
He goes to sure death when he goes to his pen.