Ralph Waldo Emerson's Each and All

[thinh]

I am a student from Vietnam. I have an English poetry class this Saturday and I will have a presentation about the poem Each And All by Ralph Waldo Emerson. The presentation is involved with answering the questions given by my teacher. Some of his questions are so difficult that I cannot think of any idea about them. So I really need your help
Each And All

Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown,
Of thee from the hill-top looking down;
The heifer that lows in the upland farm,
Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm;
The sexton, tolling his bell at noon,
Deems not that great Napoleon
Stops his horse, and lists with delight,
Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height;
Nor knowest thou what argument
Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent.
All are needed by each one;
Nothing is fair or good alone.
I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,
Singing at dawn on the alder bough;
I brought him home, in his nest, at even;
He sings the song, but it pleases not now,
For I did not bring home the river and sky; --
He sang to my ear, -- they sang to my eye.
The delicate shells lay on the shore;
The bubbles of the latest wave
Fresh pearls to their enamel gave;
And the bellowing of the savage sea
Greeted their safe escape to me.
I wiped away the weeds and foam,
I fetched my sea-born treasures home;
But the poor, unsightly, noisome things
Had left their beauty on the shore,
With the sun, and the sand, and the wild uproar.
The lover watched his graceful maid,
As 'mid the virgin train she stayed,
Nor knew her beauty's best attire
Was woven still by the snow-white choir.
At last she came to his hermitage,
Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage; --
The gay enchantment was undone,
A gentle wife, but fairy none.
Then I said, "I covet truth;
Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat;
I leave it behind with the games of youth:" –
As I spoke, beneath my feet
The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath,
Running over the club-moss burrs;
I inhaled the violet's breath;
Around me stood the oaks and firs;
Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground;
Over me soared the eternal sky,
Full of light and of deity;
Again I saw, again I heard,
The rolling river, the morning bird; --
Beauty through my senses stole;
I yielded myself to the perfect whole.

My teacher says that the poem is formed of a series of parallels and analogies. I don't know what he implies and what details in the poem are considered parallels.
Moreover, the rhyme pattern of the poem seems to be irregular. I'm not sure about this. If so, does this do any influence on the meaning of the poem?

[sanfecr]

I'm sure my response is too late. But I'll chip in my two cents anyway.

First, you can sort of create stanzas (paragraphs for poems) by putting a double space between the lines:
Nothing is fair or good alone.
I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,

He sang to my ear, -- they sang to my eye.
The delicate shells lay on the shore;

With the sun, and the sand, and the wild uproar.
The lover watched his graceful maid,

and

A gentle wife, but fairy none.
Then I said, "I covet truth;

By doing so, you should have five stanzas. And, to me, it looks like your typical high school five-paragraph essay with your Intro paragraph, three body paragraphs, and conclusion.

The first stanza (paragraph, if you will) is about how things are not aware of the influence they have on others. The "red-cloaked clown" (or as I understand it as a farmer) is not aware of the person standing atop a hill looking down at him/her. The cow is unaware of how its mooing effects people whom are listening to it from far away. The church guy ringing the bell is completely unaware of how his bell-ringing effects Napoleon and his army. And, likewise, we are not aware of the influence we have on people and things around us.

So maybe that's what your teacher is getting at in terms of parallels.

And this first "stanza" is what I call the "intro paragraph" of the poem. It introduces the main idea, more or less, of the poem. Everything influences everything. Everything is part of everything, and nothing exists alone.

[billl]

another late contributions:

parallels can be seen in the way that the person "telling" the poem
1 takes possession of a bird,
2 takes possession of some seashells, and
3 takes possession of (marries) a virgin/maid,
and discovers that each of these things loses its beauty once he takes them from the surroundings that, apparently, helped sustain the beauty.

just thought I'd add that, despite the increasing lateness of the aid.