The natural result was that there is the closest of resemblances between much of Emerson's verse and some of his most elevated prose. His prose frequently contains poetic flashes; his verse not seldom is spirited prose both in form and substance. In his Journal he sometimes wrote in prose form what with a very few changes he transcribed into verse, and in his essays there are many passages which are closely paralleled in his poems.[15] They are the poems of a philosopher whose first concern is with truth and whose truth is all-embracing. Emerson wrote no narratives, no dramatic poems, no formal odes, almost no poems for special occasions, and when he did write such as the "Concord Hymn" he made the occasion radiate out into all time and space when the embattled farmers "fired the shot heard round the world." The utter compactness and simplicity of his verse made it at times not only rugged but difficult of understanding. "Brahma," which bewildered many of its first readers, is hard to understand only so long as one fails to realize that God is the speaker of the stanzas. The poems are like Bacon's essays in their meatiness and unadornment. Had they been more strikingly different from the ordinary measures they would probably have been both blamed and praised more widely. Few of his poems have passed into wide currency, but many of his brief passages are quoted by speakers who have little idea as to their source. [15] Such abstruse poems as the following are really expounded in corresponding essays: "Written in Naples" and "Written in Rome"--the essay on "History"; "Each and All"--the essay on "Compensation"; "The Problem"--the essays on "Art" and "Compensation"; "Merlin"--the essay on "The Poet"; "The World-Soul"--the essays on "Nominalist and Realist" and "The Over-Soul"; "Hamatreya"--the essay on "Compensation"; "Musketaquid"--the essay on "Nature"; "Étienne de la Boéce"--the essay on "Friendship"; "Brahma"--the essays on "Circles" and "The Over-Soul." Not for all his faith can see Would I that cowled churchman be. Wrought in a sad sincerity. Earth proudly wears the Parthenon As the best gem upon her zone. ... if eyes were made for seeing, Then Beauty is its own excuse for being. Oh, tenderly the haughty day Fills his blue urn with fire!