Yet, after all, we may be mistaken. It is
significant that the singers who are most aware of their
inarticulateness are not the romanticists, who, supposedly, took no
thought for a possible audience; but they are the later poets, who are
obsessed with the idea that they have a message. Emily Dickinson,
herself as untroubled as any singer about her public, yet puts the
problem for us. She avers,
I found the phrase to every thought
I ever had, but one;
And that defies me,--as a hand
Did try to chalk the sun.
To races nurtured in the dark;--
How would your own begin?
Can blaze be done in cochineal,
Or noon in mazarin?
"To races nurtured in the dark." There lies a prolific source to the
poet's difficulties. His task is not merely to ensure the permanence of
his own resplendent vision, but to interpret it to men who take their
darkness for light. As Emerson expresses it in his translation of
Zoroaster, the poet's task is "inscribing things unapparent in the
apparent fabrication of the world.
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