Poems / Ralph Waldo Emerson [electronic text]
About this Item
- Title
- Poems / Ralph Waldo Emerson [electronic text]
- Author
- Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1803-1882
- Publication
- Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company
- 1904
- Rights/Permissions
The University of Michigan Library provides access to these materials for educational and research purposes. These materials are in the public domain in the United States. If you have questions about the collection please contact Digital Content & Collections at dlps-help@umich.edu, or if you have concerns about the inclusion of an item in this collection, please contact Library Information Technology at LibraryIT-info@umich.edu.
DPLA Rights Statement: No Copyright - United States
- Link to this Item
-
http://name.umdl.umich.edu/BAD1982.0001.001
- Cite this Item
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"Poems / Ralph Waldo Emerson [electronic text]." In the digital collection American Verse Project. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/BAD1982.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed June 13, 2024.
Pages
Page 234
Page 235
Page 236
Page [237]
Notes
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* 1.1
THE TITMOUSE. Page 233. The chronicle of the poet's adventure with the titmouse was written in verse while it was still fresh in his mind.
The poem appeared in the Atlantic Monthly for May, 1862, and here is the story in the journal: —
March 3, 1862.
"The snow still lies even with the tops of the walls across the Walden road, and, this afternoon, I waded through the woods to my grove. A chickadee came out to greet me, flew about within reach of my hands, perched on the nearest bough, flew down into the snow, rested there two seconds, then up again just over my head, and busied himself on the dead bark. I whistled to him through my teeth, and (I think, in response) he began at once to whistle. I promised him crumbs, and must not go again to these woods without them. I suppose the best food to carry would be the meat of shagbarks or Castile nuts. Thoreau tells me that they are very sociable with wood-choppers, and will take crumbs from their hands."
On the dangers of the situation, if such there were, Mr. Emerson is silent in the journal, as would be natural with him, and perhaps for Art's sake he magnifies them in the poem, but it is to be remembered how like a lion March often comes in in Massachusetts, that the snow was deep, the woods really remote and the walker approaching his sixtieth year. The American reader will hardly find the poem so obscure as did Matthew Arnold, who said that, after all, one doesn't quite get at what the titmouse really did for Emerson.
The titmouse was an old friend. Here is a passage from the journal of 1856: —
"The horse taught me something, the titmouse whispered a secret in my ear, and the lespedeza looked at me, as I passed. Will the academicians, in their Annual Report, please tell me what. they said?"