In this section, Emerson spends much of his time reemphasizing his beliefs concerning the language of nature and the nature of language, and the poet as the intermediary between the two. He also develops two themes that are interrelated to each other: Every individual object in nature is a microcosm of the whole, and these microcosms establish order in nature. For example, most of us take a landscape's objects for granted, ". . . but the poet sees them fall within the great Order not less than the beehive or the spider's geometrical web." By interpreting a landscape for society, the poet infuses each object with a power that makes it new: An object is re-created into something new that the public has never seen before. Emerson also touches on a favorite theme — evolution when he assures us that the poet notes every object's spirit, which compels each object to ascend into a higher form. Later in the essay, he will expand this theme to include the passage of the soul into a higher form.
Through a highly elaborate comparison, Emerson reflects on the relationship between the poet and the poet's work. The poet is under the care of nature, just as a mushroom is. A mushroom grows wild, with no one to ensure that it propagates and survives; nature, however, sees to it that the fungus drops spores, which become new mushrooms. These spores are comparable to poems leaving the poet's control and going out into the world like immortal descendants, a process much like the Olympian bards' eternally young songs from the epigraph. This notion of immortality is furthered by the image of wings, which allow the true poet's poems to escape the censure of small-minded critics, whose words are wingless and plodding. These poems, winged with spiritual beauty, are able to escape mortality.
