Analysis of Dæmonic Love
Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803 (Boston) – 1882 (Concord)
Man was made of social earth,
Child and brother from his birth;
Tethered by a liquid cord
Of blood through veins of kindred poured,
Next his heart the fireside band
Of mother, father, sister, stand;
Names from awful childhood heard,
Throbs of a wild religion stirred,
Their good was heaven, their harm was vice,
Till Beauty came to snap all ties,
The maid, abolishing the past,
With lotus-wine obliterates
Dear memory's stone-incarved traits,
And by herself supplants alone
Friends year by year more inly known.
When her calm eyes opened bright,
All were foreign in their light.
It was ever the self-same tale,
The old experience will not fail,—
Only two in the garden walked,
And with snake and seraph talked.
But God said;
I will have a purer gift,
There is smoke in the flame;
New flowerets bring, new prayers uplift,
And love without a name.
Fond children, ye desire
To please each other well;
Another round, a higher,
Ye shall climb on the heavenly stair,
And selfish preference forbear;
And in right deserving,
And without a swerving
Each from your proper state,
Weave roses for your mate.
Deep, deep are loving eyes,
Flowed with naphtha fiery sweet,
And the point is Paradise
Where their glances meet:
Their reach shall yet be more profound,
And a vision without bound:
The axis of those eyes sun-clear
Be the axis of the sphere;
Then shall the lights ye pour amain
Go without check or intervals,
Through from the empyrean walls,
Unto the same again.
Close, close to men,
Like undulating layer of air,
Right above their heads,
The potent plain of Dæmons spreads.
Stands to each human soul its own,
For watch, and ward, and furtherance
In the snares of nature's dance;
And the lustre and the grace
Which fascinate each human heart,
Beaming from another part,
Translucent through the mortal covers,
Is the Dæmon's form and face.
To and fro the Genius hies,
A gleam which plays and hovers
Over the maiden's head,
And dips sometimes as low as to her eyes.
Unknown, — albeit lying near, —
To men the path to the Dæmon sphere,
And they that swiftly come and go,
Leave no track on the heavenly snow.
Sometimes the airy synod bends,
And the mighty choir descends,
And the brains of men thenceforth,
In crowded and in still resorts,
Teem with unwonted thoughts.
As when a shower of meteors
Cross the orbit of the earth,
And, lit by fringent air,
Blaze near and far.
Mortals deem the planets bright
Have slipped their sacred bars,
And the lone seaman all the night
Sails astonished amid stars.
Beauty of a richer vein,
Graces of a subtler strain,
Unto men these moon-men lend,
And our shrinking sky extend.
So is man's narrow path
By strength and terror skirted,
Also (from the song the wrath
Of the Genii be averted!
The Muse the truth uncolored speaking),
The Dæmons are self-seeking;
Their fierce and limitary will
Draws men to their likeness still.
The erring painter made Love blind,
Highest Love who shines on all;
Him radiant, sharpest-sighted god
None can bewilder;
Whose eyes pierce
The Universe,
Path-finder, road-builder,
Mediator, royal giver,
Rightly-seeing, rightly-seen,
Of joyful and transparent mien.
'Tis a sparkle passing
From each to each, from me to thee,
Perpetually,
Sharing all, daring all,
Levelling, misplacing
Each obstruction, it unites
Equals remote, and seeming opposites.
And ever and forever Love
Delights to build a road;
Unheeded Danger near him strides,
Love laughs, and on a lion rides.
But Cupid wears another face
Born into Dæmons less divine,
His roses bleach apace,
His nectar smacks of wine.
The Dæmon ever builds a wall,
Himself incloses and includes,
Solitude in solitudes:
In like sort his love doth fall.
He is an oligarch,
He prizes wonder, fame, and mark,
He loveth crowns,
He scorneth drones;
He doth elect
The beautiful and fortunate,
And the sons of intellect,
And the souls of ample fate,
Who the Future's gates unbar,
Minions of the Morning Star.
In his prowess he exults,
And the multitude insults.
His impatient looks devour
Oft the humble and the poor,
And, seeing his eye glare,
They drop their few pale flowers
Gathered with hope to please
Along the mountain towers,
Lose courage, and despair.
He will never be gainsaid,
Pitiless, will not be stayed.<
Scheme | Text too long |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111101 1010111 1010101 11111101 1110101 11010101 111011 11010101 111101111 11011111 01010001 1101010 11111 01010101 1111111 1011101 1010011 11100111 010100111 10100101 011011 111 1110101 111001 1111110 010101 1101010 111101 0101010 111101001 0101001 001010 00101 111101 110111 111101 11101001 001110 11101 11111101 0010011 01011111 1010101 1101111 10111100 11011 100101 1111 11001011 10111 01011111 11110111 11010100 0011101 0010001 1101101 1010101 010101010 1011101 1010101 0111010 10011 0101111101 01010101 110110111 01110101 111101001 01010101 00101001 001111 01000101 1111 110101100 1010101 01111 1101 1010101 111101 00110101 1010011 1010101 10101001 1011111 01010101 111101 1101010 1010101 1011010 0101110 0111110 11011 1111101 01010111 1011111 110010101 11010 111 010 110110 1001010 1010101 11000101 101010 11111111 01000 101101 1010 1010101 1001010100 01000101 011101 01010111 11010101 11010101 10111101 110101 110111 01110101 011001 1001 0111111 11110 11010101 111 111 1101 01000100 001110 0011101 101011 1010101 0110101 001001 10101010 1010001 010111 1111110 101111 0101010 110001 111011 1001111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 4,076 |
Words | 724 |
Sentences | 26 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 21, 14, 12, 16, 17, 12, 50 |
Lines Amount | 142 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 473 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 103 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 14, 2023
- 3:38 min read
- 309 Views
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"Dæmonic Love" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 14 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/29799/d%C3%A6monic-love>.
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