Note 1. In the autumn of 1853 Mr. Emerson wrote in his journal the beginnings of this poem expressing his feeling that no muse would help should he attack in song African Slavery, the doleful theme that recurred each morning when he woke. But in life and his private and public speech he was true to Freedom. In the first from, the lines, after the fourth, ran thus:
But the God said, Not so;
Theme not this for lyric flow,
Keep thy counsel soft and low;
Name too holy to be said,
Gift too precious to be prayed,
Counsel not to be exprest,
But by will of glowing breast.
But the power by heaven adored,
With Truth and Love the Triune Lord,
When it listed woke again
Brutish millions into men, etc.
The last line appears also in the forms, Right thou feelest rashly do, or, instant do. [back]