And broad-edge bold-print posters by the wall.
He took such cognizance of men and things,
If any beat a horse, you felt he saw;
If any cursed a woman, he took note.

This is an exact description of the way Robert Browning walked the
streets of Florence. Only a few years after this poem was printed,
he was glancing o'er the books on stalls in the square of San Lorenzo,
and found the old yellow volume which he turned into an epic of
humanity. The true poet "scents" the world, smells it out, as a dog
locates game. A still stronger expression is used in _Christmas-Eve_,
where the poets "pried" at life, turned up its surface in order to
disclose all its hidden treasures of meaning.



"TRANSCENDENTALISM: A POEM IN TWELVE BOOKS"


1855

Stop playing, poet! May a brother speak?
'Tis 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?