Emerson speaks of experience as having different parts that affect it: Illusion, temperament, surface, and subjectivism. These ideas are intertwined in the poem in the beginning. He writes that understanding experience is confusing. A man's life is an illusion in which his temperament and mood affect his perspective and how he will experience life. Man can not see below the surface and can live an unprofitable life. Emerson states that man is subjective to God and nature.
"Experience" had a solemn tone and was not easy to read. Emerson was trying to explain experience and what contributes to it. It is a complicated subject but overall he still continues in the transcendental thought that man is subjective to nature and God. He thinks that mans experience should lead to observing the things in him that are in relation with God and nature and try to leave everything else behind.
Why did his writing seem so solemn?
Breck, your sentences here are excellent--simple, direct, and easy to understand. Your analysis is thin at points, specifically in the second paragraph: the difficulty of the text is only relevant if you use it to say something interesting about the text as a whole--in other words, WHY is it difficult? You also need to dig deeper into your analysis--simply concluding that "transcendental thought that man is subjective to nature and God" seems to be missing any of the specific nuances of this argument. Take your time here, and be thorough.
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