If the poet is humanity's liberating god, what is it that humanity needs liberating of? Emerson answers this question by using the image of a shepherd lost only a few feet from his cottage door. This shepherd, who perishes in a snowstorm because he is unable to find the security of home, is emblematic of the floundering state of humanity, which is "on the brink of the waters of life and truth . . . miserably dying." We are so locked into our private thoughts and our selfish actions, Emerson says, that the greater truths that bind us together have been lost; we are at the edge of the water that is universal truth, but we do not realize our thirst and are slowly wasting away in our personal prisons. The poet is the key to unlock these prisons, the cup that can quench our thirsts, because he creates new thoughts that liberate us of our own selfish wants.
In discussing this liberating aspect of poetry, Emerson invokes the name of Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish mystic and philosopher who is mentioned in many of his essays. Swedenborg is an example of the visionary who sees what others do not, and whose strange and original images allow us to view our world in a new light. Note Swedenborg's nationality, and recall Emerson's invocation in "The American Scholar" for an American literature free from the confines of the European tradition. At first glance, Emerson seems to be contradicting his own proclamations concerning this new American vision when he admiringly discusses Swedenborg. However, Swedenborg represents an ideal that Emerson hopes Americans will achieve for themselves, which is why Emerson, in the next section, will launch his characteristic summons for an American literature and an American poet whose voice celebrates America's rich character — not Europe's.
