Edgar Lee Masters (1868–1950). Spoon River Anthology. 1916.

216. Imanuel Ehrenhardt

I BEGAN with Sir William Hamilton’s lectures.

Then studied Dugald Stewart;

And then John Locke on the Understanding,

And then Descartes, Fichte and Schelling,

Kant and then Schopenhauer—

Books I borrowed from old Judge Somers.

All read with rapturous industry

Hoping it was reserved to me

To grasp the tail of the ultimate secret,

And drag it out of its hole.

My soul flew up ten thousand miles,

And only the moon looked a little bigger.

Then I fell back, how glad of the earth!

All through the soul of William Jones

Who showed me a letter of John Muir.