My own set of idiosyncratic connections is probably misleading me, but I hear Emerson. RWE was a friend of the James clan, a supper guest when WJ was a tot, and was known by his middle name, Waldo. And there are long passages of James that read like Emerson without those perilous gaps between sentences, the epigraph to this poem being one of them. The title suggests I am way off, however.
The specific identity of the speaker is less important than his state of mind and heart, and that comes through clearly, if a clouded perception can ever be said to come through clearly.
RPW
[This message has been edited by Richard Wakefield (edited June 30, 2005).]
|