Frank Preston Stearns, Cambridge Sketches

Heed the old oracles,
Ponder my spells;
Song wakes in my pinnacles
When the wind swells.
Soundeth the prophetic wind,
The shadows shake on the rock behind,
And the countless leaves of the pine are strings
Tuned to the lay the wood-god sings.

Again we are reminded of Dante in the opening passages of “Voluntaries” :

Low and mournful be the strain,
Haughty thought be far from me;
Where a captive lies in pain
Moaning by the tropic sea.
Sole estate his sire bequeathed-
Hapless sire to hapless son-
Was the wailing song he breathed,
And his chain when life was done.

It is still more difficult to compare Emerson with Shakespeare, for the one was Puritan with a strong classic tendency, and the other anti-Puritan with a strong romantic tendency; but allowing for this and for Shakespeare's universality, it may be affirmed that there are few passages in King Henry IV. and Henry V. which take a higher rank than Emerson's description of Cromwell:

He works, plots, fights 'mid rude affairs,
With squires, knights, kings his strength compares;