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Jeffers is all for the religious immanence of the Divine, not for a human transcendence toward it, as if it were somehow "outside" the universe. So, "noble sentiments" imply a spiritual realm over and above the universe, which is rejected as illusion by Jeffers. A salve for the human ego.
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Too bad he's wrong about that. It goes both ways, as Plato talked about--Eros as the longing for the source of all longing. And yet immanence too. Descent and ascent, angels going up and down the ladder, etc. The spiritual realm isn't above, spatially--it is pure Being, which by definition is (ontologically) prior to "nature" in the literal, Darwinian sense, which seems to be what Jeffers means. There really isn't any need to be dualistic about it, but I think Jeffers is.
Great poet, though. And quite right about the beauty being terrifying as well, as Rilke said: every angel is terrible.
[This message has been edited by Andrew Frisardi (edited September 01, 2008).]