Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Poems

• A Nation's Strength Read Poem Log in to favourite

  What makes a nation's pillars high
  And its foundations strong?
  
  What makes it mighty to defy
  The foes that round it throng?
  
  It is not gold.
  
  Its kingdoms grand
  Go down in battle shock;
  Its shafts are laid on sinking sand,
  Not on abiding rock.
  
  Is it the sword?
  
  Ask the red dust
  Of empires passed away;
  The blood has turned their stones to rust,
  Their glory to decay.
  
  And is it pride?
  
  Ah, that bright crown
  Has seemed to nations sweet;
  But God has struck its luster down
  In ashes at his feet.
  
  Not gold but only men can make
  A people great and strong;
  Men who for truth and honor's sake
  Stand fast and suffer long.
  
  Brave men who work while others sleep,
  Who dare while others fly.
  
  .
  
  .
  
  They build a nation's pillars deep
  And lift them to the sky.

• Alphonso Of Castile Read Poem Log in to favourite

  I Alphonso live and learn,
  Seeing nature go astern.
  
  Things deteriorate in kind,
  Lemons run to leaves and rind,
  Meagre crop of figs and limes,
  Shorter days and harder times.
  
  Flowering April cools and dies
  In the insufficient skies;
  Imps at high Midsummer blot
  Half the sun's disk with a spot;
  'Twill not now avail to tan
  Orange cheek, or skin of man:
  Roses bleach, the goats are dry,
  Lisbon quakes, the people cry.
  
  Yon pale scrawny fisher fools,
  Gaunt as bitterns in the pools,
  Are no brothers of my blood,—
  They discredit Adamhood.
  
  Eyes of gods! ye must have seen,
  O'er your ramparts as ye lean,
  The general debility,
  Of genius the sterility,
  Mighty projects countermanded,
  Rash ambition broken-handed,
  Puny man and scentless rose
  Tormenting Pan to double the dose.
  
  Rebuild or ruin: either fill
  Of vital force the wasted rill,
  Or, tumble all again in heap
  To weltering chaos, and to sleep.
  
  Say, Seigneurs, are the old Niles dry,
  Which fed the veins of earth and sky,
  That mortals miss the loyal heats
  Which drove them erst to social feats,
  Now to a savage selfness grown,
  Think nature barely serves for one;
  With.
  
  science poorly mask their hurt,
  And vex the gods with question pert,
  Immensely curious whether you
  Still are rulers, or Mildew.
  
  Masters, I'm in pain with you;
  Masters, I'll be plain with you.
  
  In my palace of Castile,
  I, a king, for kings can feel;
  There my thoughts the matter roll,
  And solve and oft resolve the whole,
  And, for I'm styled Alphonse the Wise,
  Ye shall not fail for sound advice,
  Before ye want a drop of rain,
  Hear the sentiment of Spain.
  
  You have tried famine: no more try it;
  Ply us now with a full diet;
  Teach your pupils now with plenty,
  For one sun supply us twenty:
  I have thought it thoroughly over,
  State of hermit, state of lover;
  We must have society,
  We cannot spare variety.
  
  Hear you, then, celestial fellows!
  Fits not to be over zealous;
  Steads not to work on the clean jump,
  Nor wine nor brains perpetual pump;
  Men and gods are too extense,—
  Could you slacken and condense?
  
  Your rank overgrowths reduce,
  Till your kinds abound with juice;
  Earth crowded cries, "Too many men,"—
  My counsel is, Kill nine in ten,
  And bestow the shares of all
  On the remnant decimal.
  
  Add their nine lives to this cat;
  Stuff their nine brains in his hat;
  Make his frame and forces square
  With the labors he must dare;
  Thatch his flesh, and even his years
  With the marble which he rears;
  There growing slowly old at ease,
  No faster than his planted trees,
  He may, by warrant of his age,
  In schemes of broader scope engage:
  So shall ye have a man of the sphere,
  Fit to grace the solar year.

• Art Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Give to barrows, trays, and pans
  Grace and glimmer of romance;
  Bring the moonlight into noon
  Hid in gleaming piles of stone;
  On the city's paved street
  Plant gardens lined with lilacs sweet;
  Let spouting fountains cool the air,
  Singing in the sun-baked square;
  Let statue, picture, park, and hall,
  Ballad, flag, and festival,
  The past restore, the day adorn,
  And make to-morrow a new morn.
  
  So shall the drudge in dusty frock
  Spy behind the city clock
  Retinues of airy kings,
  Skirts of angels, starry wings,
  His fathers shining in bright fables,
  His children fed at heavenly tables.
  
  'T is the privilege of Art
  Thus to play its cheerful part,
  Man on earth to acclimate,
  And bend the exile to his fate,
  And, moulded of one element
  With the days and firmament,
  Teach him on these as stairs to climb,
  And live on even terms with Time;
  Whilst upper life the slender rill
  Of human sense doth overfill.

• Astræ Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Himself it was who wrote
  His rank, and quartered his own coat.
  
  There is no king nor sovereign state
  That can fix a hero's rate;
  Each to all is venerable,
  Cap-a-pie invulnerable,
  Until he write, where all eyes rest,
  Slave or master on his breast.
  
  I saw men go up and down
  In the country and the town,
  With this prayer upon their neck,
  "Judgment and a judge we seek.
  
  "
  Not to monarchs they repair,
  Nor to learned jurist's chair,
  But they hurry to their peers,
  To their kinsfolk and their dears,
  Louder than with speech they pray,
  What am I?
  
  companion; say.
  
  And the friend not hesitates
  To assign just place and mates,
  Answers not in word or letter,
  Yet is understood the better;—
  Is to his friend a looking-glass,
  Reflects his figure that doth pass.
  
  Every wayfarer he meets
  What himself declared, repeats;
  What himself confessed, records;
  Sentences him in his words,
  The form is his own corporal form,
  And his thought the penal worm.
  
  Yet shine for ever virgin minds,
  Loved by stars and purest winds,
  Which, o'er passion throned sedate,
  Have not hazarded their state,
  Disconcert the searching spy,
  Rendering to a curious eye
  The durance of a granite ledge
  To those who gaze from the sea's edge.
  
  It is there for benefit,
  It is there for purging light,
  There for purifying storms,
  And its depths reflect all forms;
  It cannot parley with the mean,
  Pure by impure is not seen.
  
  For there's no sequestered grot,
  Lone mountain tam, or isle forgot,
  But justice journeying in the sphere
  Daily stoops to harbor there.

• Atom From Atom Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Atom from atom yawns as far
  as moon from earth, as star from star.
  
  written before details of the atomic structure of things existed.
  
  found in anthology "The Tree That Time Built"

• Bacchus Read Poem Log in to favourite

  BRING me wine, but wine which never grew
  In the belly of the grape,
  Or grew on vine whose tap-roots, reaching through
  Under the Andes to the Cape,
  Suffer'd no savour of the earth to 'scape.
  
  Let its grapes the morn salute
  From a nocturnal root,
  Which feels the acrid juice
  Of Styx and Erebus;
  And turns the woe of Night,
  By its own craft, to a more rich delight.
  
  We buy ashes for bread;
  We buy diluted wine;
  Give me of the true,
  Whose ample leaves and tendrils curl'd
  Among the silver hills of heaven
  Draw everlasting dew;
  Wine of wine,
  Blood of the world,
  Form of forms, and mould of statures,
  That I intoxicated,
  And by the draught assimilated,
  May float at pleasure through all natures;
  The bird-language rightly spell,
  And that which roses say so well:
  Wine that is shed
  Like the torrents of the sun
  Up the horizon walls,
  Or like the Atlantic streams, which run
  When the South Sea calls.
  
  Water and bread,
  Food which needs no transmuting,
  Rainbow-flowering, wisdom-fruiting,
  Wine which is already man,
  Food which teach and reason can.
  
  Wine which Music is,—
  Music and wine are one,—
  That I, drinking this,
  Shall hear far Chaos talk with me;
  Kings unborn shall walk with me;
  And the poor grass shall plot and plan
  What it will do when it is man.
  
  Quicken'd so, will I unlock
  Every crypt of every rock.
  
  I thank the joyful juice
  For all I know;
  Winds of remembering
  Of the ancient being blow,
  And seeming-solid walls of use
  Open and flow.
  
  Pour, Bacchus! the remembering wine;
  Retrieve the loss of me and mine!
  Vine for vine be antidote,
  And the grape requite the lote!
  Haste to cure the old despair;
  Reason in Nature's lotus drench'd—
  The memory of ages quench'd—
  Give them again to shine;
  Let wine repair what this undid;
  And where the infection slid,
  A dazzling memory revive;
  Refresh the faded tints,
  Recut the aged prints,
  And write my old adventures with the pen
  Which on the first day drew,
  Upon the tablets blue,
  The dancing Pleiads and eternal men.

• Beauty Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Was never form and never face
  So sweet to SEYD as only grace
  Which did not slumber like a stone,
  But hovered gleaming and was gone.
  
  Beauty chased he everywhere,
  In flame, in storm, in clouds of air.
  
  He smote the lake to feed his eye
  With the beryl beam of the broken wave;
  He flung in pebbles well to hear
  The moment's music which they gave.
  
  Oft pealed for him a lofty tone
  From nodding pole and belting zone.
  
  He heard a voice none else could hear
  From centred and from errant sphere.
  
  The quaking earth did quake in rhyme,
  Seas ebbed and flowed in epic chime.
  
  In dens of passion, and pits of woe,
  He saw strong Eros struggling through,
  To sun the dark and solve the curse,
  And beam to the bounds of the universe.
  
  While thus to love he gave his days
  In loyal worship, scorning praise,
  How spread their lures for him in vain
  Thieving Ambition and paltering Gain!
  He thought it happier to be dead,
  To die for Beauty, than live for bread.

• Berrying Read Poem Log in to favourite

  "May be true what I had heard,
  Earth's a howling wilderness
  Truculent with fraud and force,"
  Said I, strolling through the pastures,
  And along the riverside.
  
  Caught among the blackberry vines,
  Feeding on the Ethiops sweet,
  Pleasant fancies overtook me:
  I said, "What influence me preferred
  Elect to dreams thus beautiful?
  
  "
  The vines replied, "And didst thou deem
  No wisdom to our berries went?
  
  "

• Blight Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Give me truths,
  For I am weary of the surfaces,
  And die of inanition.
  
  If I knew
  Only the herbs and simples of the wood,
  Rue, cinquefoil, gill, vervain, and pimpernel,
  Blue-vetch, and trillium, hawkweed, sassafras,
  Milkweeds, and murky brakes, quaint pipes and sundew,
  And rare and virtuous roots, which in these woods
  Draw untold juices from the common earth,
  Untold, unknown, and I could surely spell
  Their fragrance, and their chemistry apply
  By sweet affinities to human flesh,
  Driving the foe and stablishing the friend,—
  O that were much, and I could be a part
  Of the round day, related to the sun,
  And planted world, and full executor
  Of their imperfect functions.
  
  But these young scholars who invade our hills,
  Bold as the engineer who fells the wood,
  And travelling often in the cut he makes,
  Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not,
  And all their botany is Latin names.
  
  The old men studied magic in the flower,
  And human fortunes in astronomy,
  And an omnipotence in chemistry,
  Preferring things to names, for these were men,
  Were unitarians of the united world,
  And wheresoever their clear eyebeams fell,
  They caught the footsteps of the SAME.
  
  Our eyes
  Are armed, but we are strangers to the stars,
  And strangers to the mystic beast and bird,
  And strangers to the plant and to the mine;
  The injured elements say, Not in us;
  And night and day, ocean and continent,
  Fire, plant, and mineral say, Not in us,
  And haughtily return us stare for stare.
  
  For we invade them impiously for gain,
  We devastate them unreligiously,
  And coldly ask their pottage, not their love,
  Therefore they shove us from them, yield to us
  Only what to our griping toil is due;
  But the sweet affluence of love and song,
  The rich results of the divine consents
  Of man and earth, of world beloved and lover,
  The nectar and ambrosia are withheld;
  And in the midst of spoils and slaves, we thieves
  And pirates of the universe, shut out
  Daily to a more thin and outward rind,
  Turn pale and starve.
  
  Therefore to our sick eyes,
  The stunted trees look sick, the summer short,
  Clouds shade the sun, which will not tan our hay.
  
  And nothing thrives to reach its natural term,
  And life, shorn of its venerable length,
  Even at its greatest space, is a defeat,
  And dies in anger that it was a dupe,
  And, in its highest noon and wantonness,
  Is early frugal like a beggar's child:
  With most unhandsome calculation taught,
  Even in the hot pursuit of the best aims
  And prizes of ambition, checks its hand,
  Like Alpine cataracts, frozen as they leaped,
  Chilled with a miserly comparison
  Of the toy's purchase with the length of life.

• Boston Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Sicut Patribus, sit Deus Nobis)
  The rocky nook with hilltops three
  Looked eastward from the farms,
  And twice each day the flowing sea
  Took Boston in its arms;
  The men of yore were stout and poor,
  And sailed for bread to every shore.
  
  And where they went on trade intent
  They did what freeman can,
  Their dauntless ways did all men praise,
  The merchant was a man.
  
  The world was made for honest trade,—
  To plant and eat be none afraid.
  
  The waves that rocked them on the deep
  To them their secret told;
  Said the winds that sung the lads to sleep,
  "Like us be free and bold!"
  The honest waves refuse to slaves
  The empire of the ocean caves.
  
  Old Europe groans with palaces,
  Has lords enough and more;—
  We plant and build by foaming seas
  A city of the poor;—
  For day by day could Boston Bay
  Their honest labor overpay.
  
  We grant no dukedoms to the few,
  We hold like rights and shall;—
  Equal on Sunday in the pew,
  On Monday in the mall.
  
  For what avail the plough or sail,
  Or land or life, if freedom fail?
  
  The noble craftsmen we promote,
  Disown the knave and fool;
  Each honest man shall have his vote,
  Each child shall have his school.
  
  A union then of honest men,
  Or union nevermore again.
  
  The wild rose and the barberry thorn
  Hung out their summer pride
  Where now on heated pavements worn
  The feet of millions stride.
  
  Fair rose the planted hills behind
  The good town on the bay,
  And where the western hills declined
  The prairie stretched away.
  
  What care though rival cities soar
  Along the stormy coast:
  Penn's town, New York, and Baltimore,
  If Boston knew the most!
  They laughed to know the world so wide;
  The mountains said: "Good-day!
  We greet you well, you Saxon men,
  Up with your towns and stay!"
  The world was made for honest trade,—
  To plant and eat be none afraid.
  
  "For you," they said, "no barriers be,
  For you no sluggard rest;
  Each street leads downward to the sea,
  Or landward to the West.
  
  "
  O happy town beside the sea,
  Whose roads lead everywhere to all;
  Than thine no deeper moat can be,
  No stouter fence, no steeper wall!
  Bad news from George on the English throne:
  "You are thriving well," said he;
  "Now by these presents be it known,
  You shall pay us a tax on tea;
  'Tis very small,—no load at all,—
  Honor enough that we send the call.
  
  "
  "Not so," said Boston, "good my lord,
  We pay your governors here
  Abundant for their bed and board,
  Six thousand pounds a year.
  
  (Your highness knows our homely word,)
  Millions for self-government,
  But for tribute never a cent.
  
  "
  The cargo came! and who could blame
  If Indians seized the tea,
  And, chest by chest, let down the same
  Into the laughing sea?
  
  For what avail the plough or sail
  Or land or life, if freedom fail?
  
  The townsmen braved the English king,
  Found friendship in the French,
  And Honor joined the patriot ring
  Low on their wooden bench.
  
  O bounteous seas that never fail!
  O day remembered yet!
  O happy port that spied the sail
  Which wafted Lafayette!
  Pole-star of light in Europe's night,
  That never faltered from the right.
  
  Kings shook with fear, old empires crave
  The secret force to find
  Which fired the little State to save
  The rights of all mankind.
  
  But right is might through all the world;
  Province to province faithful clung,
  Through good and ill the war-bolt hurled,
  Till Freedom cheered and the joy-bells rung.
  
  The sea returning day by day
  Restores the world-wide mart;
  So let each dweller on the Bay
  Fold Boston in his heart,
  Till these echoes be choked with snows,
  Or over the town blue ocean flows.
  
  This poem was read in Faneuil Hall, on the Centennial Anniversary of the "Boston Tea-Party," at which a band of men disguised as Indians had quietly emptied into the sea the taxed tea-chests of three British ships.

• Boston Hymn Read Poem Log in to favourite

  The word of the Lord by night
  To the watching Pilgrims came,
  As they sat by the seaside,
  And filled their hearts with flame.
  
  God said, I am tired of kings,
  I suffer them no more;
  Up to my ear the morning brings
  The outrage of the poor.
  
  Think ye I made this ball
  A field of havoc and war,
  Where tyrants great and tyrants small
  Might harry the weak and poor?
  
  My angel, his name is Freedom,--
  Choose him to be your king;
  He shall cut pathways east and west,
  And fend you with his wing.
  
  Lo! I uncover the land
  Which I hid of old time in the West,
  As the sculptor uncovers the statue
  When he has wrought his best;
  I show Columbia, of the rocks
  Which dip their foot in the seas,
  And soar to the air-borne flocks
  Of clouds, and the boreal fleece.
  
  I will divide my goods;
  Call in the wretch and slave:
  None shall rule but the humble,
  And none but Toil shall have.
  
  I will have never a noble,
  No lineage counted great;
  Fishers and choppers and ploughmen
  Shall constitute a state.
  
  Go, cut down trees in the forest,
  And trim the straightest boughs;
  Cut down the trees in the forest,
  And build me a wooden house.
  
  Call the people together,
  The young men and the sires,
  The digger in the harvest field,
  Hireling, and him that hires;
  And here in a pine state-house
  They shall choose men to rule
  In every needful faculty,
  In church, and state, and school.
  
  Lo, now! if these poor men
  Can govern the land and sea,
  And make just laws below the sun,
  As planets faithful be.
  
  And ye shall succour men;
  'T is nobleness to serve;
  Help them who cannot help again:
  Beware from right to swerve.
  
  I break your bonds and masterships,
  And I unchain the slave:
  Free be his heart and hand henceforth
  As wind and wandering wave.
  
  I cause from every creature
  His proper good to flow:
  As much as he is and doeth,
  So much he shall bestow.
  
  But laying hands on another
  To coin his labour and sweat,
  He goes in pawn to his victim
  For eternal years in debt.
  
  To-day unbind the captive,
  So only are ye unbound;
  Lift up a people from the dust,
  Trump of their rescue, sound!
  Pay ransom to the owner,
  And fill the bag to the brim.
  
  Who is the owner?
  
  The slave is owner,
  And ever was.
  
  Pay him.
  
  O North! give him beauty for rags,
  And honour, O South! for his shame;
  Nevada! coin thy golden crags
  With Freedom's image and name.
  
  Up! and the dusky race
  That sat in darkness long,--
  Be swift their feet as antelopes,
  And as behemoth strong.
  
  Come, East and West and North,
  By races, as snow-flakes,
  And carry my purpose forth,
  Which neither halts nor shakes.
  
  My will fulfilled shall be,
  For, in daylight or in dark,
  My thunderbolt has eyes to see
  His way home to the mark.
  
  READ IN MUSIC HALL, JANUARY 1, 1863.

• Brahma Read Poem Log in to favourite

  If the red slayer think he slays,
  Or if the slain think he is slain,
  They know not well the subtle ways
  I keep, and pass, and turn again.
  
  Far or forgot to me is near;
  Shadow and sunlight are the same;
  The vanished gods to me appear;
  And one to me are shame and fame.
  
  They reckon ill who leave me out;
  When me they fly, I am the wings;
  I am the doubter and the doubt,
  I am the hymn the Brahmin sings.
  
  The strong gods pine for my abode,
  And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
  But thou, meek lover of the good!
  Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.

• Celestial Love Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Higher far,
  Upward, into the pure realm,
  Over sun or star,
  Over the flickering Dæmon film,
  Thou must mount for love,—
  Into vision which all form
  In one only form dissolves;
  In a region where the wheel,
  On which all beings ride,
  Visibly revolves;
  Where the starred eternal worm
  Girds the world with bound and term;
  Where unlike things are like,
  When good and ill,
  And joy and moan,
  Melt into one.
  
  There Past, Present, Future, shoot
  Triple blossoms from one root
  Substances at base divided
  In their summits are united,
  There the holy Essence rolls,
  One through separated souls,
  And the sunny &Aeligon sleeps
  Folding nature in its deeps,
  And every fair and every good
  Known in part or known impure
  To men below,
  In their archetypes endure.
  
  The race of gods,
  Or those we erring own,
  Are shadows flitting up and down
  In the still abodes.
  
  The circles of that sea are laws,
  Which publish and which hide the Cause.
  
  Pray for a beam
  Out of that sphere
  Thee to guide and to redeem.
  
  O what a load
  Of care and toil
  By lying Use bestowed,
  From his shoulders falls, who sees
  The true astronomy,
  The period of peace!
  Counsel which the ages kept,
  Shall the well-born soul accept.
  
  As the overhanging trees
  Fill the lake with images,
  As garment draws the garment's hem
  Men their fortunes bring with them;
  By right or wrong,
  Lands and goods go to the strong;
  Property will brutely draw
  Still to the proprietor,
  Silver to silver creep and wind,
  And kind to kind,
  Nor less the eternal poles
  Of tendency distribute souls.
  
  There need no vows to bind
  Whom not each other seek but find.
  
  They give and take no pledge or oath,
  Nature is the bond of both.
  
  No prayer persuades, no flattery fawns,
  Their noble meanings are their pawns.
  
  Plain and cold is their address,
  Power have they for tenderness,
  And so thoroughly is known
  Each others' purpose by his own,
  They can parley without meeting,
  Need is none of forms of greeting,
  They can well communicate
  In their innermost estate;
  When each the other shall avoid,
  Shall each by each be most enjoyed.
  
  Not with scarfs or perfumed gloves
  Do these celebrate their loves,
  Not by jewels, feasts, and savors,
  Not by ribbons or by favors,
  But by the sun-spark on the sea,
  And the cloud-shadow on the lea,
  The soothing lapse of morn to mirk,
  And the cheerful round of work.
  
  Their cords of love so public are,
  They intertwine the farthest star.
  
  The throbbing sea, the quaking earth,
  Yield sympathy and signs of mirth;
  Is none so high, so mean is none,
  But feels and seals this union.
  
  Even the tell Furies are appeased,
  The good applaud, the lost are eased.
  
  Love's hearts are faithful, but not fond,
  Bound for the just, but not beyond;
  Not glad, as the low-loving herd,
  Of self in others still preferred,
  But they have heartily designed
  The benefit of broad mankind.
  
  And they serve men austerely,
  After their own genius, clearly,
  Without a false humility;
  For this is love's nobility,
  Not to scatter bread and gold,
  Goods and raiment bought and sold,
  But to hold fast his simple sense,
  And speak the speech of innocence,
  And with hand, and body, and blood,
  To make his bosom-counsel good:
  For he that feeds men, serveth few,
  He serves all, who dares be true.

• Character Read Poem Log in to favourite

  The sun set, but set not his hope:
  Stars rose; his faith was earlier up:
  Fixed on the enormous galaxy,
  Deeper and older seemed his eye;
  And matched his sufferance sublime
  The taciturnity of time.
  
  He spoke, and words more soft than rain
  Brought the Age of Gold again:
  His action won such reverence sweet
  As hid all measure of the feat.

• Compensation Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Why should I keep holiday,
  When other men have none?
  
  Why but because when these are gay,
  I sit and mourn alone.
  
  And why when mirth unseals all tongues
  Should mine alone be dumb?
  
  Ah! late I spoke to silent throngs,
  And now their hour is come.

• Concord Hymn Read Poem Log in to favourite

  By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
  Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
  Here once the embattled farmers stood
  And fired the shot heard round the world.
  
  The foe long since in silence slept;
  Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
  And Time the ruined bridge has swept
  Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
  
  On this green bank, by this soft stream,
  We set today a votive stone;
  That memory may their deed redeem,
  When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
  
  Spirit, that made those heroes dare
  To die, and leave their children free,
  Bid Time and Nature gently spare
  The shaft we raise to them and thee.

• Culture Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Can rules or tutors educate
  The semigod whom we await?
  
  He must be musical,
  Tremulous, impressional,
  Alive to gentle influence
  Of landscape and of sky,
  And tender to the spirit-touch
  Of man's or maiden's eye:
  But, to his native centre fast,
  Shall into Future fuse the Past,
  And the world's flowing fates in his own mould recast.

• Days Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,
  Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,
  And marching single in an endless file,
  Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.
  
  To each they offer gifts after his will,
  Bread, kingdoms, stars, or sky that holds them all.
  
  I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp,
  Forgot my morning wishes, hastily
  Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day
  Turned and departed silent.
  
  I, too late,
  Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn.

• Dirge Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Knows he who tills this lonely field
  To reap its scanty corn,
  What mystic fruit his acres yield
  At midnight and at morn?
  
  In the long sunny afternoon,
  The plain was full of ghosts,
  I wandered up, I wandered down,
  Beset by pensive hosts.
  
  The winding Concord gleamed below,
  Pouring as wide a flood
  As when my brothers long ago,
  Came with me to the wood.
  
  But they are gone,— the holy ones,
  Who trod with me this lonely vale,
  The strong, star-bright companions
  Are silent, low, and pale.
  
  My good, my noble, in their prime,
  Who made this world the feast it was,
  Who learned with me the lore of time,
  Who loved this dwelling-place.
  
  They took this valley for their toy,
  They played with it in every mood,
  A cell for prayer, a hall for joy,
  They treated nature as they would.
  
  They colored the horizon round,
  Stars flamed and faded as they bade,
  All echoes hearkened for their sound,
  They made the woodlands glad or mad.
  
  I touch this flower of silken leaf
  Which once our childhood knew
  Its soft leaves wound me with a grief
  Whose balsam never grew.
  
  Hearken to yon pine warbler
  Singing aloft in the tree;
  Hearest thou, O traveller!
  What he singeth to me?
  
  Not unless God made sharp thine ear
  With sorrow such as mine,
  Out of that delicate lay couldst thou
  The heavy dirge divine.
  
  Go, lonely man, it saith,
  They loved thee from their birth,
  Their hands were pure, and pure their faith,
  There are no such hearts on earth.
  
  Ye drew one mother's milk,
  One chamber held ye all;
  A very tender history
  Did in your childhood fall.
  
  Ye cannot unlock your heart,
  The key is gone with them;
  The silent organ loudest chants
  The master's requiem.

• Dæmonic Love Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Man was made of social earth,
  Child and brother from his birth;
  Tethered by a liquid cord
  Of blood through veins of kindred poured,
  Next his heart the fireside band
  Of mother, father, sister, stand;
  Names from awful childhood heard,
  Throbs of a wild religion stirred,
  Their good was heaven, their harm was vice,
  Till Beauty came to snap all ties,
  The maid, abolishing the past,
  With lotus-wine obliterates
  Dear memory's stone-incarved traits,
  And by herself supplants alone
  Friends year by year more inly known.
  
  When her calm eyes opened bright,
  All were foreign in their light.
  
  It was ever the self-same tale,
  The old experience will not fail,—
  Only two in the garden walked,
  And with snake and seraph talked.
  
  But God said;
  I will have a purer gift,
  There is smoke in the flame;
  New flowerets bring, new prayers uplift,
  And love without a name.
  
  Fond children, ye desire
  To please each other well;
  Another round, a higher,
  Ye shall climb on the heavenly stair,
  And selfish preference forbear;
  And in right deserving,
  And without a swerving
  Each from your proper state,
  Weave roses for your mate.
  
  Deep, deep are loving eyes,
  Flowed with naphtha fiery sweet,
  And the point is Paradise
  Where their glances meet:
  Their reach shall yet be more profound,
  And a vision without bound:
  The axis of those eyes sun-clear
  Be the axis of the sphere;
  Then shall the lights ye pour amain
  Go without check or intervals,
  Through from the empyrean walls,
  Unto the same again.
  
  Close, close to men,
  Like undulating layer of air,
  Right above their heads,
  The potent plain of Dæmons spreads.
  
  Stands to each human soul its own,
  For watch, and ward, and furtherance
  In the snares of nature's dance;
  And the lustre and the grace
  Which fascinate each human heart,
  Beaming from another part,
  Translucent through the mortal covers,
  Is the Dæmon's form and face.
  
  To and fro the Genius hies,
  A gleam which plays and hovers
  Over the maiden's head,
  And dips sometimes as low as to her eyes.
  
  Unknown, — albeit lying near, —
  To men the path to the Dæmon sphere,
  And they that swiftly come and go,
  Leave no track on the heavenly snow.
  
  Sometimes the airy synod bends,
  And the mighty choir descends,
  And the brains of men thenceforth,
  In crowded and in still resorts,
  Teem with unwonted thoughts.
  
  As when a shower of meteors
  Cross the orbit of the earth,
  And, lit by fringent air,
  Blaze near and far.
  
  Mortals deem the planets bright
  Have slipped their sacred bars,
  And the lone seaman all the night
  Sails astonished amid stars.
  
  Beauty of a richer vein,
  Graces of a subtler strain,
  Unto men these moon-men lend,
  And our shrinking sky extend.
  
  So is man's narrow path
  By strength and terror skirted,
  Also (from the song the wrath
  Of the Genii be averted!
  The Muse the truth uncolored speaking),
  The Dæmons are self-seeking;
  Their fierce and limitary will
  Draws men to their likeness still.
  
  The erring painter made Love blind,
  Highest Love who shines on all;
  Him radiant, sharpest-sighted god
  None can bewilder;
  Whose eyes pierce
  The Universe,
  Path-finder, road-builder,
  Mediator, royal giver,
  Rightly-seeing, rightly-seen,
  Of joyful and transparent mien.
  
  'Tis a sparkle passing
  From each to each, from me to thee,
  Perpetually,
  Sharing all, daring all,
  Levelling, misplacing
  Each obstruction, it unites
  Equals remote, and seeming opposites.
  
  And ever and forever Love
  Delights to build a road;
  Unheeded Danger near him strides,
  Love laughs, and on a lion rides.
  
  But Cupid wears another face
  Born into Dæmons less divine,
  His roses bleach apace,
  His nectar smacks of wine.
  
  The Dæmon ever builds a wall,
  Himself incloses and includes,
  Solitude in solitudes:
  In like sort his love doth fall.
  
  He is an oligarch,
  He prizes wonder, fame, and mark,
  He loveth crowns,
  He scorneth drones;
  He doth elect
  The beautiful and fortunate,
  And the sons of intellect,
  And the souls of ample fate,
  Who the Future's gates unbar,
  Minions of the Morning Star.
  
  In his prowess he exults,
  And the multitude insults.
  
  His impatient looks devour
  Oft the humble and the poor,
  And, seeing his eye glare,
  They drop their few pale flowers
  Gathered with hope to please
  Along the mountain towers,
  Lose courage, and despair.
  
  He will never be gainsaid,
  Pitiless, will not be stayed.
  
  His hot tyranny
  Burns up every other tie;
  Therefore comes an hour from Jove
  Which his ruthless will defies,
  And the dogs of Fate unties.
  
  Shiver the palaces of glass,
  Shrivel the rainbow-colored walls
  Where in bright art each god and sibyl dwelt
  Secure as in the Zodiack's belt;
  And the galleries and halls
  Wherein every Siren sung,
  Like a meteor pass.
  
  For this fortune wanted root
  In the core of God's abysm,
  Was a weed of self and schism:
  And ever the Dæmonic Love
  Is the ancestor of wars,
  And the parent of remorse.

• Each And All Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown,
  Of thee, from the hill-top looking down;
  And the heifer, that lows in the upland farm,
  Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm;
  The sexton tolling the bell at noon,
  Dreams 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,
  And 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 strayed,
  Nor knew her beauty's best attire
  Was woven still by the snow-white quire;
  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;
  Above me soared the eternal sky,
  Full of light and 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.

• Eros Read Poem Log in to favourite

  The sense of the world is short, -
  Long and various the report, -
  To love and be beloved;
  Men and gods have not outlearned it;
  And, how oft soe'er they've turned it,
  'Tis not to be improved.

• Etienne de la Boéce Read Poem Log in to favourite

  I serve you not, if you I follow,
  Shadow-like, o'er hill and hollow,
  And bend my fancy to your leading,
  All too nimble for my treading.
  
  When the pilgrimage is done,
  And we've the landscape overrun,
  I am bitter, vacant, thwarted,
  And your heart is unsupported.
  
  Vainly valiant, you have missed
  The manhood that should yours resist,
  Its complement; but if I could
  In severe or cordial mood
  Lead you rightly to my altar,
  Where the wisest muses falter,
  And worship that world-warning spark
  Which dazzles me in midnight dark,
  Equalizing small and large,
  While the soul it doth surcharge,
  That the poor is wealthy grown,
  And the hermit never alone,
  The traveller and the road seem one
  With the errand to be done;—
  That were a man's and lover's part,
  That were Freedom's whitest chart.

• Experience Read Poem Log in to favourite

  The lords of life, the lords of life,—
  I saw them pass,
  In their own guise,
  Like and unlike,
  Portly and grim,—
  Use and Surprise,
  Surface and Dream,
  Succession swift and spectral Wrong,
  Temperament without a tongue,
  And the inventor of the game
  Omnipresent without name;—
  Some to see, some to be guessed,
  They marched from east to west:
  Little man, least of all,
  Among the legs of his guardians tall,
  Walked about with puzzled look.
  
  Him by the hand dear Nature took,
  Dearest Nature, strong and kind,
  Whispered, ‘Darling, never mind!
  To-morrow they will wear another face,
  The founder thou; these are thy race!’

• Fable Read Poem Log in to favourite

  The mountain and the squirrel
  Had a quarrel;
  And the former called the latter ‘Little Prig.
  
  ’
  Bun replied,
  ‘You are doubtless very big;
  But all sorts of things and weather
  Must be taken in together,
  To make up a year
  And a sphere.
  
  And I think it no disgrace
  To occupy my place.
  
  If I'm not so large as you,
  You are not so small as I,
  And not half so spry.
  
  I'll not deny you make
  A very pretty squirrel track;
  Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;
  If I cannot carry forests on my back,
  Neither can you crack a nut.
  
  ’

• Fate Read Poem Log in to favourite

  That you are fair or wise is vain,
  Or strong, or rich, or generous;
  You must have also the untaught strain
  That sheds beauty on the rose.
  
  There is a melody born of melody,
  Which melts the world into a sea:
  Toil could never compass it;
  Art its height could never hit;
  It came never out of wit;
  But a music music-born
  Well may Jove and Juno scorn.
  
  Thy beauty, if it lack the fire
  Which drives me mad with sweet desire,
  What boots it?
  
  what the soldier's mail,
  Unless he conquer and prevail?
  
  What all the goods thy pride which lift,
  If thou pine for another's gift?
  
  Alas! that one is born in blight,
  Victim of perpetual slight:
  When thou lookest on his face,
  Thy heart saith, "Brother, go thy ways!
  None shall ask thee what thou doest,
  Or care a rush for what thou knowest,
  Or listen when thou repliest,
  Or remember where thou liest,
  Or how thy supper is sodden;"
  And another is born
  To make the sun forgotten.
  
  Surely he carries a talisman
  Under his tongue;
  Broad are his shoulders, and strong;
  And his eye is scornful,
  Threatening, and young.
  
  I hold it of little matter
  Whether your jewel be of pure water,
  A rose diamond or a white,
  But whether it dazzle me with light.
  
  I care not how you are dressed,
  In the coarsest or in the best;
  Nor whether your name is base or brave;
  Nor for the fashion of your behavior;
  But whether you charm me,
  Bid my bread feed and my fire warm me,
  And dress up Nature in your favor.
  
  One thing is forever good;
  That one thing is Success, —
  Dear to the Eumenides,
  And to all the heavenly brood.
  
  Who bides at home, nor looks abroad,
  Carries the eagles, and masters the sword.

• Flower Chorus Read Poem Log in to favourite

  O such a commotion under the ground,
  When March called, "Ho, there! ho!"
  Such spreading of rootlets far and wide,
  Such whisperings to and fro!
  "Are you ready?
  
  " the Snowdrop asked,
  " 'Tis time to start, you know.
  
  "
  "Almost, my dear!" the Scilla replied,
  "I'll follow as soon as you go.
  
  "
  Then "Ha! ha! ha!" a chorus came
  Of laughter sweet and slow,
  From millions of flowers under the ground,
  Yes, millions beginning to grow.
  
  "I'll promise my blossoms," the Crocus said,
  "When I hear the blackbird sing.
  
  "
  And straight thereafter Narcissus cried,
  "My silver and gold I'll bring.
  
  "
  "And ere they are dulled," another spoke,
  "The Hyacinth bells shall ring.
  
  "
  But the Violet only murmured, "I'm here,"
  And sweet grew the air of Spring.
  
  Then "Ha! ha! ha!" a chorus came
  Of laughter sweet and low,
  From millions of flowers under the ground,
  Yes, millions beginning to grow.
  
  O the pretty brave things, thro' the coldest days
  Imprisoned in walls of brown,
  They never lost heart tho' the blast shrieked loud,
  And the sleet and the hail came down;
  But patiently each wrought her wonderful dress,
  Or fashioned her beautiful crown,
  And now they are coming to lighten the world
  Still shadowed by winter's frown.
  
  And well may they cheerily laugh "Ha! ha!"
  In laughter sweet and low,
  The millions of flowers under the ground,
  Yes, millions beginning to grow.
  
  Taken from "In Poem Town book 3" from Blackie & Son Ltd.
  
  Ed C J Ridout.
  
  page 42

• Forebearance Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Hast thou named all the birds without a gun;
  Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk;
  At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse;
  Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust;
  And loved so well a high behavior
  In man or maid, that thou from speech refrained,
  Nobility more nobly to repay?
  
  —
  O be my friend, and teach me to be thine!

• Forerunners Read Poem Log in to favourite

  LONG I followed happy guides,
  I could never reach their sides;
  Their step is forth, and, ere the day
  Breaks up their leaguer, and away.
  
  Keen my sense, my heart was young,
  Right good-will my sinews strung,
  But no speed of mine avails
  To hunt upon their shining trails.
  
  On and away, their hasting feet
  Make the morning proud and sweet;
  Flowers they strew,—I catch the scent;
  Or tone of silver instrument
  Leaves on the wind melodious trace;
  Yet I could never see their face.
  
  On eastern hills I see their smokes,
  Mixed with mist by distant lochs.
  
  I met many travellers
  Who the road had surely kept;
  They saw not my fine revellers,—
  These had crossed them while they slept.
  
  Some had heard their fair report,
  In the country or the court.
  
  Fleetest couriers alive
  Never yet could once arrive,
  As they went or they returned,
  At the house where these sojourned.
  
  Sometimes their strong speed they slacken.
  
  Though they are not overtaken;
  In sleep their jubilant troop is near,—
  I tuneful voices overhear;
  It may be in wood or waste,—
  At unawares ’t is come and past.
  
  Their near camp my spirit knows
  By signs gracious as rainbows.
  
  I thenceforward and long after,
  Listen for their harp-like laughter
  And carry in my heart, for days,
  Peace that hallows rudest ways.

• Freedom Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Once I wished I might rehearse
  Freedom's paean in my verse,
  That the slave who caught the strain
  Should throb until he snapped his chain.
  
  But the Spirit said, 'Not so;
  Speak it not, or speak it low;
  Name not lightly to be said,
  Gift too precious to be prayed,
  Passion not to be expressed
  But by heaving of the breast:
  Yet,--wouldst thou the mountain find
  Where this deity is shrined,
  Who gives to seas and sunset skies
  Their unspent beauty of surprise,
  And, when it lists him, waken can
  Brute or savage into man;
  Or, if in thy heart he shine,
  Blends the starry fates with thine,
  Draws angels nigh to dwell with thee,
  And makes thy thoughts archangels be;
  Freedom's secret wilt thou know?
  
  --
  Counsel not with flesh and blood;
  Loiter not for cloak or food;
  Right thou feelest, rush to do.
  
  '

• Friendship Read Poem Log in to favourite

  A ruddy drop of manly blood
  The surging sea outweighs,
  The world uncertain comes and goes;
  The lover rooted stays.
  
  I fancied he was fled,—
  And, after many a year,
  Glowed unexhausted kindliness,
  Like daily sunrise there.
  
  My careful heart was free again,
  O friend, my bosom said,
  Through thee alone the sky is arched,
  Through thee the rose is red;
  All things through thee take nobler form,
  And look beyond the earth,
  The mill-round of our fate appears
  A sun-path in thy worth.
  
  Me too thy nobleness had taught
  To master my despair;
  The fountains of my hidden life
  Are through thy friendship fair.

• From the Persian of Hafiz I Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Butler, fetch the ruby wine,
  Which with sudden greatness fills us;
  Pour for me who in my spirit
  Fail in courage and performance;
  Bring the philosophic stone,
  Karun's treasure, Noah's life;
  Haste, that by thy means I open
  All the doors of luck and life.
  
  Bring me, boy, the fire-water
  Zoroaster sought in dust.
  
  To Hafiz revelling 'tis allowed
  To pray to Matter and to Fire.
  
  Bring the wine of Jamschid's glass
  That shone, ere time was, in the Néant.
  
  Give it me, that through its virtue
  I, as Jamschid, see through worlds.
  
  Wisely said the Kaiser Jamschid,
  This world's not worth a barleycorn.
  
  Bring me, boy, the nectar cup,
  Since it leads to Paradise.
  
  Flute and lyre lordly speak,
  Lees of wine outvalue crowns.
  
  Hither bring the veiled beauty
  Who in ill-famed houses sits:
  Lead her forth: my honest name
  Freely barter I for wine.
  
  Bring me, boy, the fire-water,
  Drinks the lion—the woods burn.
  
  Give it me, that I storm heaven,
  Tear the net from the arch-wolf.
  
  Wine, wherewith the Houris teach
  Angels the ways of Paradise.
  
  On the glowing coals I'll set it,
  And therewith my brain perfume.
  
  Bring me wine, through whose effulgence
  Jam and Chosroes yielded light:
  Wine, that to the flute I sing
  Where is Jam, and where is Kauss.
  
  Bring the blessing of old times;
  Bless the old departed Shahs;
  Bring it me, the Shah of hearts.
  
  Bring me wine to wash me clean,
  Of the weather-stains of care,
  See the countenance of luck.
  
  While I dwell in spirit-gardens,
  Wherefore sit I shackled here?
  
  Lo, this mirror shows me all.
  
  Drunk, I speak of purity,
  Beggar, I of lordship speak.
  
  When Hafiz in his revel sings,
  Shouteth Sohra in her sphere.
  
  Fear the changes of a day:
  Bring wine which increases life,
  Since the world is all untrue,
  Let the trumpets thee remind
  How the crown of Kobad vanished.
  
  Be not certain of the world;
  'Twill not spare to shed thy blood.
  
  Desperate of the world's affair,
  Came I running to the wine-house.
  
  Give me wine which maketh glad,
  That I may my steed bestride,
  Through the course career with Rustem,
  Gallop to my heart's content.
  
  Give me, boy, the ruby cup
  Which unlocks the heart with wine,
  That I reason quite renounce,
  And plant banners on the worlds.
  
  Let us make our glasses kiss,
  Let us quench the sorrow-cinders:
  To-day let us drink together.
  
  Whoso has a banquet dressed,
  Is with glad mind satisfied,
  'Scaping from the snares of Dews.
  
  Alas for youth! 'tis gone in wind,—
  Happy he who spent it well.
  
  Give me wine, that I o'erleap
  Both worlds at a single spring,
  Stole at dawn from glowing spheres
  Call of Houris to mine ear;
  "O happy bird! delicious soul!
  Spread thy pinion, break the cage;
  Sit on the roof of the seven domes,
  Where the spirit takes repose.
  
  "
  In the time of Bisurdschimihr,
  Menutscheher's beauty shined,
  On the beaker of Nushirvan,
  Wrote they once in eider times,
  "Hear the Counsel, learn from us
  Sample of the course of things;
  Earth, it is a place of sorrow,
  Scanty joys are here below,
  Who has nothing, has no sorrow.
  
  "
  Where is Jam, and where his cup?
  
  Solomon, and his mirror where?
  
  Which of the wise masters knows
  What time Kauss and Jam existed?
  
  When those heroes left this world,
  Left they nothing but their names.
  
  Bind thy heart not to the earth,
  When thou goest, come not back.
  
  Fools squander on the world their hearts.
  
  League with it, is feud with heaven;
  Never gives it what thou wishest.
  
  A cup of wine imparts the sight
  Of the five heaven-domes with nine steps:
  Whoso can himself renounce,
  Without support shall walk thereon.
  
  Who discreet is, is not wise.
  
  Give me, boy, the Kaiser cup,
  Which rejoices heart and soul;
  Under type of wine and cup
  Signify we purest love.
  
  Youth like lightning disappears,
  Life goes by us as the wind:
  Leave the dwelling with six doors,
  And the serpent with nine heads;
  Life and silver spend thou freely,
  If thou honorest the soul.
  
  Haste into the other life;
  All is nought save God alone.
  
  Give me, boy, this toy of dæmons.
  
  When the cup of Jam was lost,
  Him availed the world no more.
  
  Fetch the wine-glass made of ice,
  Wake the torpid heart with wine.
  
  Every clod of loam below us
  Is a skull of Alexander;
  Oceans are the blood of princes;
  Desert sands the dust of beauties.
  
  More than one Darius was there
  Who the whole world overcame;
  But since these gave up the ghost,
  Thinkest thou they never were?
  
  Boy, go from me to the Shah,
  Say to him: Shah crowned as Jam,
  Win thou first the poor man's heart,
  Then the glass; so know the world.
  
  Empty sorrows from the earth
  Canst thou drive away with wine.
  
  Now in thy throne's recent beauty,
  In the flowing tide of power,
  Moon of fortune, mighty king,
  Whose tiara sheddeth lustre,
  Peace secure to fish and fowl,
  Heart and eye-sparkle to saints;
  Shoreless is the sea of praise,—
  I content me with a prayer.
  
  From Nisami's poet-works,
  Highest ornament of speech,
  Here a verse will I recite,
  Verse as beautiful as pearls.
  
  "More kingdoms wait thy diadem,
  Than are known to thee by name;
  May the sovran destiny
  Grant a victory every morn!"
  (Note in original:
  [The Poems of Hafiz are held by the Persians to be mystical and allegorical.
  
  The following ode, notwithstanding its anacreontic style, is regarded by his German editor, Von Hammer, as one of those which earned for Hafiz among his countrymen the title of "Tongue of the Secret.
  
  " ]

• From the Persian of Hafiz II Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Of Paradise, O hermit wise,
  Let us renounce the thought.
  
  Of old therein our names of sin
  Allah recorded not.
  
  Who dear to God on earthly sod
  No corn-grain plants,
  The same is glad that life is had,
  Though corn he wants.
  
  Thy mind the mosque and cool kiosk,
  Spare fast, and orisons;
  Mine me allows the drink-house,
  And sweet chase of the nuns.
  
  O just fakeer, with brow austere,
  Forbid me not the vine;
  On the first day, poor Hafiz clay
  Was kneaded up with wine.
  
  He is no dervise, Heaven slights his service,
  Who shall refuse
  There in the banquet, to pawn his blanket
  For Schiraz's juice.
  
  Who his friend's shirt, or hem of his shirt,
  Shall spare to pledge,
  To him Eden's bliss and Angel's kiss
  Shall want their edge.
  
  Up, Hafiz; grace from high God's face
  Beams on thee pure;
  Shy then not hell, and trust thou well,
  Heaven is secure.

• Give All To Love Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Give all to love;
  Obey thy heart;
  Friends, kindred, days,
  Estate, good fame,
  Plans, credit, and the muse;
  Nothing refuse.
  
  'Tis a brave master,
  Let it have scope,
  Follow it utterly,
  Hope beyond hope;
  High and more high,
  It dives into noon,
  With wing unspent,
  Untold intent;
  But 'tis a god,
  Knows its own path,
  And the outlets of the sky.
  
  'Tis not for the mean,
  It requireth courage stout,
  Souls above doubt,
  Valor unbending;
  Such 'twill reward,
  They shall return
  More than they were,
  And ever ascending.
  
  Leave all for love;—
  Yet, hear me, yet,
  One word more thy heart behoved,
  One pulse more of firm endeavor,
  Keep thee to-day,
  To-morrow, for ever,
  Free as an Arab
  Of thy beloved.
  
  Cling with life to the maid;
  But when the surprise,
  Vague shadow of surmise,
  Flits across her bosom young
  Of a joy apart from thee,
  Free be she, fancy-free,
  Do not thou detain a hem,
  Nor the palest rose she flung
  From her summer diadem.
  
  Though thou loved her as thyself,
  As a self of purer clay,
  Tho' her parting dims the day,
  Stealing grace from all alive,
  Heartily know,
  When half-gods go,
  The gods arrive.

• Glory Of Friendship Read Poem Log in to favourite

  The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand,
  nor the kindly smile nor the joy of companionship;
  it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when
  he discovers that someone else believes in him and is
  willing to trust him.

• Gnothi Seauton Read Poem Log in to favourite

  I
  If thou canst bear
  Strong meat of simple truth
  If thou durst my words compare
  With what thou thinkest in my soul’s free youth,
  Then take this fact unto thy soul,-----
  God dwells in thee.
  
  It is no metaphor nor parable,
  It is unknown to thousands, and to thee;
  Yet there is God.
  
  II
  He is in thy world,
  But thy world knows him not.
  
  He is the mighty Heart
  From which life’s varied pulses part.
  
  Clouded and shrouded there doth sit
  The Infinite
  Embosomed in a man;
  And thou art stranger to thy guest
  And know’st not what thou doth invest.
  
  The clouds that veil his life within
  Are thy thick woven webs of sin,
  Which his glory struggling through
  Darkens to thine evil hue.
  
  III
  Then bear thyself, O man!
  Up to the scale and compass of thy guest;
  Soul of thy soul.
  
  Be great as doth beseem
  The ambassador who bears
  The royal presence where he goes.
  
  IV
  Give up to thy soul-----
  Let it have its way-----
  It is, I tell thee, God himself,
  The selfsame One that rules the Whole,
  Tho’ he speaks thro’ thee with a stifled voice,
  And looks through thee, shorn of his beams.
  
  But if thou listen to his voice,
  If thou obey the royal thought,
  It will grow clearer to thine ear,
  More glorious to thine eye.
  
  The clouds will burst that veil him now
  And thou shalt see the Lord.
  
  V
  Therefore be great,
  Not proud,-----too great to be proud.
  
  Let not thine eyes rove,
  Peep not in corners; let thine eyes
  Look straight before thee, as befits
  The simplicity of Power.
  
  And in thy closet carry state;
  Filled with light, walk therein;
  And, as a king
  Would do no treason to his own empire,
  So do not thou to thine.
  
  VI
  This is the reason why thou dost recognize
  Things now first revealed,
  Because in thee resides
  The Spirit that lives in all;
  And thou canst learn the laws of nature
  Because its author is latent in thy breast.
  
  VII
  Therefore, O happy youth,
  Happy if thou dost know and love this truth,
  Thou art unto thyself a law,
  And since the soul of things is in thee,
  Thou needest nothing out of thee.
  
  The law, the gospel, and the Providence,
  Heaven, Hell, the Judgement, and the stores
  Immeasurable of Truth and Good,
  All these thou must find
  Within thy single mind,
  Or never find.
  
  VIII
  Thou art the law;
  The gospel has no revelation
  Of peace and hope until there is response
  From the deep chambers of thy mind thereto,-----
  The rest is straw.
  
  It can reveal no truth unknown before.
  
  The Providence
  Thou art thyself that doth dispense
  Wealth to thy work, want to thy sloth,
  Glory to goodness, to neglect, the moth.
  
  Thou sow’st the wind, the whirlwind reapest,
  Thou payest the wages
  Of thy own work, through all ages.
  
  The almighty energy within
  Crowneth virtue, curseth sin.
  
  Virtue sees by its own light;
  Stumbleth sin in self-made night.
  
  IX
  Who approves thee doing right?
  
  God in thee.
  
  Who condemns thee doing wrong?
  
  God in thee.
  
  Who punishes thine evil deed?
  
  God in thee.
  
  What is thine evil meed?
  
  Thy worse mind, with error blind
  And more prone to evil
  That is, the greater hiding of the God within:
  The loss of peace
  The terrible displeasure of this inmate
  And next the consequence
  More faintly as more distant wro’t
  Upon our outward fortunes
  Which decay with vice
  With Virtue rise.
  
  X
  The selfsame God
  By the same law
  Makes the souls of angels glad
  And the souls of devils sad
  See
  There is nothing else but God
  Where e'er I look
  All things hasten back to him
  Light is but his shadow dim.
  
  XI
  Shall I ask wealth or power of God, who gave
  An image of himself to be my soul?
  
  As well might swilling ocean ask a wave,
  Or the starred firmament a dying coal,-----
  For that which is in me lives in the whole.

• Good-bye Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home;
  Thou art my friend, and I'm not thine.
  
  Long through thy weary crowds I roam;
  A river-ark on the ocean brine,
  Long I've been tossed like the driven foam;
  But now, proud world! I'm going home.
  
  Good-bye to Flattery's fawning face;
  To Grandeur with his wise grimace;
  To upstart Wealth's averted eye;
  To supple Office, low and high;
  To crowded halls, to court and street;
  To frozen hearts and hasting feet;
  To those who go, and those who come;
  Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home.
  
  I am going to my own hearth-stone,
  Bosomed to yon green hills alone,—
  A secret nook in a pleasant land,
  Whose groves the frolic fairies planned;
  Where arches green, the livelong day,
  Echo the blackbird's roundelay,
  And vulgar feet have never trod
  A spot that is sacred to thought and God.
  
  O, when I am safe in my sylvan home,
  I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome;
  And when I am stretched beneath the pines,
  Where the evening star so holy shines,
  I laugh at the lore and the pride of man,
  At the sophist schools and the learned clan;
  For what are they all, in their high conceit,
  When man in the bush with God may meet?

• Grace Read Poem Log in to favourite

  How much, preventing God! how much I owe
  To the defenses thou hast round me set:
  Example, custom, fear, occasional slow,
  These scorned bondmen were my parapet.
  
  I dare not peep over this parapet
  To gauge with glance the roaring gulf below,
  The depths of sin to which I had descended,
  Had not these me against myself defended.

• Guy Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Mortal mixed of middle clay,
  Attempered to the night and day,
  Interchangeable with things,
  Needs no amulets nor rings.
  
  Guy possessed the talisman
  That all things from him began,
  And as, of old, Polycrates
  Chained the sunshine and the breeze,
  So did Guy betimes discover
  Fortune was his guard and lover;
  In strange junctures, felt with awe
  His own symmetry with law,
  That no mixture could withstand
  The virtue of his lucky hand.
  
  He gold or jewel could not lose,
  Nor not receive his ample dues;
  In the street, if he turned round,
  His eye the eye 'twas seeking found.
  
  It seemed his Genius discreet
  Worked on the Maker's own receipt,
  And made each tide and element
  Stewards of stipend and of rent;
  So that the common waters fell
  As costly wine into his well.
  
  He had so sped his wise affairs
  That he caught nature in his snares;
  Early or late, the falling rain
  Arrived in time to swell his grain;
  Stream could not so perversely wind,
  But corn of Guy's was there to grind;
  The whirlwind found it on its way
  To speed his sails, to dry his hay;
  And the world's sun seemed to rise
  To drudge all day for Guy the wise.
  
  In his rich nurseries, timely skill
  Strong crab with nobler blood did fill;
  The Zephyr in his garden rolled
  From plum trees vegetable gold;
  And all the hours of the year
  With their own harvest hovered were:
  There was no frost but welcome came,
  Nor freshet, nor midsummer flame;
  Belonged to wind and world the toil
  And venture, and to Guy the oil.

• Hamatreya Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Bulkeley, Hunt, Willard, Hosmer, Meriam, Flint,
  Possessed the land which rendered to their toil
  Hay, corn, roots, hemp, flax, apples, wool, and wood.
  
  Each of these landlords walked amidst his farm,
  Saying, “’Tis mine, my children’s and my name’s.
  
  How sweet the west wind sounds in my own trees!
  How graceful climb those shadows on my hill!
  I fancy these pure waters and the flags
  Know me, as does my dog: we sympathize;
  And, I affirm, my actions smack of the soil.
  
  ”
  
  Where are these men?
  
  Asleep beneath their grounds:
  And strangers, fond as they, their furrows plough.
  
  Earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful boys
  Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs;
  Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet
  Clear of the grave.
  
  They added ridge to valley, brook to pond,
  And sighed for all that bounded their domain;
  “This suits me for a pasture; that’s my park;
  We must have clay, lime, gravel, granite-ledge,
  And misty lowland, where to go for peat.
  
  The land is well,—lies fairly to the south.
  
  ’Tis good, when you have crossed the sea and back,
  To find the sitfast acres where you left them.
  
  ”
  
  Ah! the hot owner sees not Death, who adds
  Him to his land, a lump of mould the more.
  
  Hear what the Earth say:—
  
  
  EARTH-SONG
  
  “Mine and yours;
  Mine, not yours.
  
  Earth endures;
  Stars abide—
  Shine down in the old sea;
  Old are the shores;
  But where are old men?
  
  I who have seen much,
  Such have I never seen.
  
  “The lawyer’s deed
  Ran sure,
  In tail,
  To them and to their heirs
  Who shall succeed,
  Without fail,
  Forevermore.
  
  “Here is the land,
  Shaggy with wood,
  With its old valley,
  Mound and flood.
  
  But the heritors?
  
  —
  Fled like the flood's foam.
  
  The lawyer and the laws,
  And the kingdom,
  Clean swept herefrom.
  
  “They called me theirs,
  Who so controlled me;
  Yet every one
  Wished to stay, and is gone,
  How am I theirs,
  If they cannot hold me,
  But I hold them?
  
  ”
  
  When I heard the Earth-song
  I was no longer brave;
  My avarice cooled
  Like lust in the chill of the grave.

• Heroism Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Ruby wine is drunk by knaves,
  Sugar spends to fatten slaves,
  Rose and vine-leaf deck buffoons;
  Thunder-clouds are Jove's festoons,
  Drooping oft in wreaths of dread,
  Lightning-knotted round his head;
  The hero is not fed on sweets,
  Daily his own heart he eats;
  Chambers of the great are jails,
  And head-winds right for royal sails.

• In Memoriam Read Poem Log in to favourite

  I mourn upon this battle-field,
  But not for those who perished here.
  
  Behold the river-bank
  Whither the angry farmers came,
  In sloven dress and broken rank,
  Nor thought of fame.
  
  Their deed of blood
  All mankind praise;
  Even the serene Reason says,
  It was well done.
  
  The wise and simple have one glance
  To greet yon stern head-stone,
  Which more of pride than pity gave
  To mark the Briton's friendless grave.
  
  Yet it is a stately tomb;
  The grand return
  Of eve and morn,
  The year's fresh bloom,
  The silver cloud,
  Might grace the dust that is most proud.
  
  Yet not of these I muse
  In this ancestral place,
  But of a kindred face
  That never joy or hope shall here diffuse.
  
  Ah, brother of the brief but blazing star!
  What hast thou to do with these
  Haunting this bank's historic trees?
  
  Thou born for noblest life,
  For action's field, for victor's car,
  Thou living champion of the right?
  
  To these their penalty belonged:
  I grudge not these their bed of death,
  But thine to thee, who never wronged
  The poorest that drew breath.
  
  All inborn power that could
  Consist with homage to the good
  Flamed from his martial eye;
  He who seemed a soldier born,
  He should have the helmet worn,
  All friends to fend, all foes defy,
  Fronting foes of God and man,
  Frowning down the evil-doer,
  Battling for the weak and poor.
  
  His from youth the leader's look
  Gave the law which others took,
  And never poor beseeching glance
  Shamed that sculptured countenance.
  
  There is no record left on earth,
  Save in tablets of the heart,
  Of the rich inherent worth,
  Of the grace that on him shone,
  Of eloquent lips, of joyful wit;
  He could not frame a word unfit,
  An act unworthy to be done;
  Honour prompted every glance,
  Honour came and sat beside him,
  In lowly cot or painful road,
  And evermore the cruel god
  Cried, "Onward!" and the palm-crown showed.
  
  Born for success he seemed,
  With grace to win, with heart to hold,
  With shining gifts that took all eyes,
  With budding power in college-halls,
  As pledged in coming days to forge
  Weapons to guard the State, or scourge
  Tyrants despite their guards or walls.
  
  On his young promise Beauty smiled,
  Drew his free homage unbeguiled,
  And prosperous Age held out his hand,
  And richly his large future planned,
  And troops of friends enjoyed the tide,--
  All, all was given, and only health denied.
  
  I see him with superior smile
  Hunted by Sorrow's grisly train
  In lands remote, in toil and pain,
  With angel patience labour on,
  With the high port he wore erewhile,
  When, foremost of the youthful band,
  The prizes in all lists he won;
  Nor bate one jot of heart or hope,
  And, least of all, the loyal tie
  Which holds to home 'neath every sky,
  The joy and pride the pilgrim feels
  In hearts which round the hearth at home
  Keep pulse for pulse with those who roam.
  
  What generous beliefs console
  The brave whom Fate denies the goal!
  If others reach it, is content;
  To Heaven's high will his will is bent.
  
  Firm on his heart relied,
  What lot soe'er betide,
  Work of his hand
  He nor repents nor grieves,
  Pleads for itself the fact,
  As unrepenting Nature leaves
  Her every act.
  
  Fell the bolt on the branching oak;
  The rainbow of his hope was broke;
  No craven cry, no secret tear,--
  He told no pang, he knew no fear;
  Its peace sublime his aspect kept,
  His purpose woke, his features slept;
  And yet between the spasms of pain
  His genius beamed with joy again.
  
  O'er thy rich dust the endless smile
  Of Nature in thy Spanish isle
  Hints never loss or cruel break
  And sacrifice for love's dear sake,
  Nor mourn the unalterable Days
  That Genius goes and Folly stays.
  
  What matters how, or from what ground,
  The freed soul its Creator found?
  
  Alike thy memory embalms
  That orange-grove, that isle of palms,
  And these loved banks, whose oak-boughs bold
  Root in the blood of heroes old.
  
  E.
  
  B.
  
  E.

• Initial Love Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Venus, when her son was lost,
  Cried him up and down the coast,
  In hamlets, palaces, and parks,
  And told the truant by his marks,
  Golden curls, and quiver, and bow;—
  This befell long ago.
  
  Time and tide are strangely changed,
  Men and manners much deranged;
  None will now find Cupid latent
  By this foolish antique patent.
  
  He came late along the waste,
  Shod like a traveller for haste,
  With malice dared me to proclaim him,
  That the maids and boys might name him.
  
  Boy no more, he wears all coats,
  Frocks, and blouses, capes, capôtes,
  He bears no bow, or quiver, or wand,
  Nor chaplet on his head or hand:
  Leave his weeds and heed his eyes,
  All the rest he can disguise.
  
  In the pit of his eyes a spark
  Would bring back day if it were dark,
  And,—if I tell you all my thought,
  Though I comprehend it not,—
  In those unfathomable orbs
  Every function he absorbs;
  He doth eat, and drink, and fish, and shoot,
  And write, and reason, and compute,
  And ride, and run, and have, and hold,
  And whine, and flatter, and regret,
  And kiss, and couple, and beget,
  By those roving eye-balls bold;
  Undaunted are their courages,
  Right Cossacks in their forages;
  Fleeter they than any creature,
  They are his steeds and not his feature,
  Inquisitive, and fierce, and fasting,
  Restless, predatory, hasting,—
  And they pounce on other eyes,
  As lions on their prey;
  And round their circles is writ,
  Plainer than the day,
  Underneath, within, above,
  Love, love, love, love.
  
  He lives in his eyes,
  There doth digest, and work, and spin,
  And buy, and sell, and lose, and win;
  He rolls them with delighted motion,
  Joy-tides swell their mimic ocean.
  
  Yet holds he them with tortest rein,
  That they may seize and entertain
  The glance that to their glance opposes,
  Like fiery honey sucked from roses.
  
  He palmistry can understand,
  Imbibing virtue by his hand
  As if it were a living root;
  The pulse of hands will make him mute;
  With all his force he gathers balms
  Into those wise thrilling palms.
  
  Cupid is a casuist,
  A mystic, and a cabalist,
  Can your lurking Thought surprise,
  And interpret your device;
  Mainly versed in occult science,
  In magic, and in clairvoyance.
  
  Oft he keeps his fine ear strained,
  And reason on her tiptoe pained,
  For aery intelligence,
  And for strange coincidence.
  
  But it touches his quick heart
  When Fate by omens takes his part,
  And chance-dropt hints from Nature's sphere
  Deeply soothe his anxious ear.
  
  Heralds high before him run,
  He has ushers many a one,
  Spreads his welcome where he goes,
  And touches all things with his rose.
  
  All things wait for and divine him,—
  How shall I dare to malign him,
  Or accuse the god of sport?
  
  —
  I must end my true report,
  Painting him from head to foot,
  In as far as I took note,
  Trusting well the matchless power
  Of this young-eyed emperor
  Will clear his fame from every cloud,
  With the bards, and with the crowd.
  
  He is wilful, mutable,
  Shy, untamed, inscrutable,
  Swifter-fashioned than the fairies,
  Substance mixed of pure contraries,
  His vice some elder virtue's token,
  And his good is evil spoken.
  
  Failing sometimes of his own,
  He is headstrong and alone;
  He affects the wood and wild,
  Like a flower-hunting child,
  Buries himself in summer waves,
  In trees, with beasts, in mines, and caves,
  Loves nature like a horned cow,
  Bird, or deer, or cariboo.
  
  Shun him, nymphs, on the fleet horses!
  He has a total world of wit,
  O how wise are his discourses!
  But he is the arch-hypocrite,
  And through all science and all art,
  Seeks alone his counterpart.
  
  He is a Pundit of the east,
  He is an augur and a priest,
  And his soul will melt in prayer,
  But word and wisdom are a snare;
  Corrupted by the present toy,
  He follows joy, and only joy.
  
  There is no mask but he will wear,
  He invented oaths to swear,
  He paints, he carves, he chants, he prays,
  And holds all stars in his embrace,
  Godlike, —but 'tis for his fine pelf,
  The social quintessence of self.
  
  Well, said I, he is hypocrite,
  And folly the end of his subtle wit,
  He takes a sovran privilege
  Not allowed to any liege,
  For he does go behind all law,
  And right into himself does draw,
  For he is sovranly allied.
  
  Heaven's oldest blood flows in his side,
  And interchangeably at one
  With every king on every throne,
  That no God dare say him nay,
  Or see the fault, or seen betray;
  He has the Muses by the heart,
  And the Parcæ all are of his part.
  
  His many signs cannot be told,
  He has not one mode, but manifold,
  Many fashions and addresses,
  Piques, reproaches, hurts, caresses,
  Action, service, badinage,
  He will preach like a friar,
  And jump like Harlequin,
  He will read like a crier,
  And fight like a Paladin.
  
  Boundless is his memory,
  Plans immense his term prolong,
  He is not of counted age,
  Meaning always to be young.
  
  And his wish is intimacy,
  Intimater intimacy,
  And a stricter privacy,
  The impossible shall yet be done,
  And being two shall still be one.
  
  As the wave breaks to foam on shelves,
  Then runs into a wave again,
  So lovers melt their sundered selves,
  Yet melted would be twain.

• Letters Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Every day brings a ship,
  Every ship brings a word;
  Well for those who have no fear,
  Looking seaward well assured
  That the word the vessel brings
  Is the word they wish to hear.

• Life Is Great Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Life is great
  Men are small
  Were it not for the Power
  To which each testifies
  We could not suppress a titter.
  
  The Soul is in eternity.
  
  As a man stands in the landscape
  He is very small,
  But he is apprised that the other is large
  And being so apprized
  Partakes of its scope.
  
  When once he has believed
  And become doubly alive
  Threescore & ten orbits of the sun
  To him short term appears
  And he finds it not unworthy
  To live long only for a few lessons
  Assured he shall pass through a million forms
  And in each acquire the appropriate facts
  So that one day he will emerge
  Armed at all points a god,
  A demigod, a chrystal soul
  Sphered & concentred to the whole.

• Loss And Gain Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Virtue runs before the muse
  And defies her skill,
  She is rapt, and doth refuse
  To wait a painter's will.
  
  Star-adoring, occupied,
  Virtue cannot bend her,
  Just to please a poet's pride,
  To parade her splendor.
  
  The bard must be with good intent
  No more his, but hers,
  Throw away his pen and paint,
  Kneel with worshippers.
  
  Then, perchance, a sunny ray
  From the heaven of fire,
  His lost tools may over-pay,
  And better his desire.

• Love And Thought Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Two well-assorted travellers use
  The highway, Eros and the Muse.
  
  From the twins is nothing hidden,
  To the pair is naught forbidden;
  Hand in hand the comrades go
  Every nook of nature through:
  Each for other they were born,
  Each can other best adorn;
  They know one only mortal grief
  Past all balsam or relief,
  When, by false companions crossed,
  The pilgrims have each other lost.

• Lover's Petition Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Good Heart, that ownest all!
  I ask a modest boon and small:
  Not of lands and towns the gift,--
  Too large a load for me to lift,--
  But for one proper creature,
  Which geographic eye,
  Sweeping the map of Western earth,
  Or the Atlantic coast, from Maine
  To Powhatan's domain,
  Could not descry.
  
  Is't much to ask in all thy huge creation,
  So trivial a part,--
  A solitary heart?
  
  Yet count me not of spirit mean,
  Or mine a mean demand,
  For 't is the concentration
  And worth of all the land,
  The sister of the sea,
  The daughter of the strand,
  Composed of air and light,
  And of the swart earth-might.
  
  So little to thy poet's prayer
  Thy large bounty well can spare.
  
  And yet I think, if she were gone,
  The world were better left alone.

• Manners Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Grace, Beauty, and Caprice
  Build this golden portal;
  Graceful women, chosen men,
  Dazzle every mortal.
  
  Their sweet and lofty countenance
  His enchanted food;
  He need not go to them, their forms
  Beset his solitude.
  
  He looketh seldom in their face,
  His eyes explore the ground,--
  The green grass is a looking-glass
  Whereon their traits are found.
  
  Little and less he says to them,
  So dances his heart in his breast;
  Their tranquil mien bereaveth him
  Of wit, of words, of rest.
  
  Too weak to win, too fond to shun
  The tyrants of his doom,
  The much deceived Endymion
  Slips behind a tomb.

• May-Day Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Daughter of Heaven and Earth, coy Spring,
  With sudden passion languishing,
  Maketh all things softly smile,
  Painteth pictures mile on mile,
  Holds a cup with cowslip-wreaths,
  Whence a smokeless incense breathes.
  
  Girls are peeling the sweet willow,
  Poplar white, and Gilead-tree,
  And troops of boys
  Shouting with whoop and hilloa,
  And hip, hip three times three.
  
  The air is full of whistlings bland;
  What was that I heard
  Out of the hazy land?
  
  Harp of the wind, or song of bird,
  Or clapping of shepherd's hands,
  Or vagrant booming of the air,
  Voice of a meteor lost in day?
  
  Such tidings of the starry sphere
  Can this elastic air convey.
  
  Or haply 't was the cannonade
  Of the pent and darkened lake,
  Cooled by the pendent mountain's shade,
  Whose deeps, till beams of noonday break,
  Afflicted moan, and latest hold
  Even unto May the iceberg cold.
  
  Was it a squirrel's pettish bark,
  Or clarionet of jay?
  
  or hark,
  Where yon wedged line the Nestor leads,
  Steering north with raucous cry
  Through tracts and provinces of sky,
  Every night alighting down
  In new landscapes of romance,
  Where darkling feed the clamorous clans
  By lonely lakes to men unknown.
  
  Come the tumult whence it will,
  Voice of sport, or rush of wings,
  It is a sound, it is a token
  That the marble sleep is broken,
  And a change has passed on things.
  
  Beneath the calm, within the light,
  A hid unruly appetite
  Of swifter life, a surer hope,
  Strains every sense to larger scope,
  Impatient to anticipate
  The halting steps of aged Fate.
  
  Slow grows the palm, too slow the pearl:
  When Nature falters, fain would zeal
  Grasp the felloes of her wheel,
  And grasping give the orbs another whirl.
  
  Turn swiftlier round, O tardy ball!
  And sun this frozen side,
  Bring hither back the robin's call,
  Bring back the tulip's pride.
  
  Why chidest thou the tardy Spring?
  
  The hardy bunting does not chide;
  The blackbirds make the maples ring
  With social cheer and jubilee;
  The redwing flutes his o-ka-lee,
  The robins know the melting snow;
  The sparrow meek, prophetic-eyed,
  Her nest beside the snow-drift weaves,
  Secure the osier yet will hide
  Her callow brood in mantling leaves;
  And thou, by science all undone,
  Why only must thy reason fail
  To see the southing of the sun?
  
  As we thaw frozen flesh with snow,
  So Spring will not, foolish fond,
  Mix polar night with tropic glow,
  Nor cloy us with unshaded sun,
  Nor wanton skip with bacchic dance,
  But she has the temperance
  Of the gods, whereof she is one,--
  Masks her treasury of heat
  Under east-winds crossed with sleet.
  
  Plants and birds and humble creatures
  Well accept her rule austere;
  Titan-born, to hardy natures
  Cold is genial and dear.
  
  As Southern wrath to Northern right
  Is but straw to anthracite;
  As in the day of sacrifice,
  When heroes piled the pyre,
  The dismal Massachusetts ice
  Burned more than others' fire,
  So Spring guards with surface cold
  The garnered heat of ages old:
  Hers to sow the seed of bread,
  That man and all the kinds be fed;
  And, when the sunlight fills the hours,
  Dissolves the crust, displays the flowers.
  
  The world rolls round,--mistrust it not,--
  Befalls again what once befell;
  All things return, both sphere and mote,
  And I shall hear my bluebird's note,
  And dream the dream of Auburn dell.
  
  When late I walked, in earlier days,
  All was stiff and stark;
  Knee-deep snows choked all the ways,
  In the sky no spark;
  Firm-braced I sought my ancient woods,
  Struggling through the drifted roads;
  The whited desert knew me not,
  Snow-ridges masked each darling spot;
  The summer dells, by genius haunted,
  One arctic moon had disenchanted.
  
  All the sweet secrets therein hid
  By Fancy, ghastly spells undid.
  
  Eldest mason, Frost, had piled,
  With wicked ingenuity,
  Swift cathedrals in the wild;
  The piny hosts were sheeted ghosts
  In the star-lit minster aisled.
  
  I found no joy: the icy wind
  Might rule the forest to his mind.
  
  Who would freeze in frozen brakes?
  
  Back to books and sheltered home,
  And wood-fire flickering on the walls,
  To hear, when, 'mid our talk and games,
  Without the baffled north-wind calls.
  
  But soft! a sultry morning breaks;
  The cowslips make the brown brook gay;
  A happier hour, a longer day.
  
  Now the sun leads in the May,
  Now desire of action wakes,
  And the wish to roam.
  
  The caged linnet in the Spring
  Hearkens for the choral glee,
  When his fellows on the wing
  Migrate from the Southern Sea;
  When trellised grapes their flowers unmask,
  And the new-born tendrils twine,
  The old wine darkling in the cask
  Feels the bloom on the living vine,
  And bursts the hoops at hint of Spring:
  And so, perchance, in Adam's race,
  Of Eden's bower some dream-like trace
  Survived the Flight, and swam the Flood,
  And wakes the wish in youngest blood
  To tread the forfeit Paradise,
  And feed once more the exile's eyes;
  And ever when the happy child
  In May beholds the blooming wild,
  And hears in heaven the bluebird sing,
  "Onward," he cries, "your baskets bring,--
  In the next field is air more mild,
  And o'er yon hazy crest is Eden's balmier Spring.
  
  "
  Not for a regiment's parade,
  Nor evil laws or rulers made,
  Blue Walden rolls its cannonade,
  But for a lofty sign
  Which the Zodiac threw,
  That the bondage-days are told,
  And waters free as winds shall flow.
  
  Lo! how all the tribes combine
  To rout the flying foe.
  
  See, every patriot oak-leaf throws
  His elfin length upon the snows,
  Not idle, since the leaf all day
  Draws to the spot the solar ray,
  Ere sunset quarrying inches down,
  And half-way to the mosses brown;
  While the grass beneath the rime
  Has hints of the propitious time,
  And upward pries and perforates
  Through the cold slab a thousand gates,
  Till green lances peering through
  Bend happy in the welkin blue.
  
  April cold with dropping rain
  Willows and lilacs brings again,
  The whistle of returning birds,
  And trumpet-lowing of the herds.
  
  The scarlet maple-keys betray
  What potent blood hath modest May;
  What fiery force the earth renews,
  The wealth of forms, the flush of hues;
  Joy shed in rosy waves abroad
  Flows from the heart of Love, the Lord.
  
  Hither rolls the storm of heat;
  I feel its finer billows beat
  Like a sea which me infolds;
  Heat with viewless fingers moulds,
  Swells, and mellows, and matures,
  Paints, and flavours, and allures,
  Bird and brier inly warms,
  Still enriches and transforms,
  Gives the reed and lily length,
  Adds to oak and oxen strength,
  Boils the world in tepid lakes,
  Burns the world, yet burnt remakes;
  Enveloping heat, enchanted robe,
  Wraps the daisy and the globe,
  Transforming what it doth infold,
  Life out of death, new out of old,
  Painting fawns' and leopards' fells,
  Seethes the gulf-encrimsoning shells,
  Fires garden with a joyful blaze
  Of tulips in the morning's rays.
  
  The dead log touched bursts into leaf,
  The wheat-blade whispers of the sheaf.
  
  What god is this imperial Heat,
  Earth's prime secret, sculpture's seat?
  
  Doth it bear hidden in its heart
  Water-line patterns of all art,
  All figures, organs, hues, and graces?
  
  Is it Daedalus?
  
  is it Love?
  
  Or walks in mask almighty Jove,
  And drops from Power's redundant horn
  All seeds of beauty to be born?
  
  Where shall we keep the holiday,
  And duly greet the entering May?
  
  Too strait and low our cottage doors,
  And all unmeet our carpet floors;
  Nor spacious court, nor monarch's hall,
  Suffice to hold the festival.
  
  Up and away! where haughty woods
  Front the liberated floods:
  We will climb the broad-backed hills,
  Hear the uproar of their joy;
  We will mark the leaps and gleams
  Of the new-delivered streams,
  And the murmuring rivers of sap
  Mount in the pipes of the trees,
  Giddy with day, to the topmost spire,
  Which for a spike of tender green
  Bartered its powdery cap;
  And the colours of joy in the bird,
  And the love in its carol heard,
  Frog and lizard in holiday coats,
  And turtle brave in his golden spots;
  We will hear the tiny roar
  Of the insects evermore,
  While cheerful cries of crag and plain
  Reply to the thunder of river and main.
  
  As poured the flood of the ancient sea
  Spilling over mountain chains,
  Bending forests as bends the sedge,
  Faster flowing o'er the plains,--
  A world-wide wave with a foaming edge
  That rims the running silver sheet,--
  So pours the deluge of the heat
  Broad northward o'er the land,
  Painting artless paradises,
  Drugging herbs with Syrian spices,
  Fanning secret fires which glow
  In columbine and clover-blow,
  Climbing the northern zones,
  Where a thousand pallid towns
  Lie like cockles by the main,
  Or tented armies on a plain.
  
  The million-handed sculptor moulds
  Quaintest bud and blossom folds,
  The million-handed painter pours
  Opal hues and purple dye;
  Azaleas flush the island floors,
  And the tints of heaven reply.
  
  Wreaths for the May! for happy Spring
  To-day shall all her dowry bring,
  The love of kind, the joy, the grace,
  Hymen of element and race,
  Knowing well to celebrate
  With song and hue and star and state,
  With tender light and youthful cheer,
  The spousals of the new-born year.
  
  Lo Love's inundation poured
  Over space and race abroad!
  Spring is strong and virtuous,
  Broad-sowing, cheerful, plenteous,
  Quickening underneath the mould
  Grains beyond the price of gold.
  
  So deep and large her bounties are,
  That one broad, long midsummer day
  Shall to the planet overpay
  The ravage of a year of war.
  
  Drug the cup, thou butler sweet,
  And send the nectar round;
  The feet that slid so long on sleet
  Are glad to feel the ground.
  
  Fill and saturate each kind
  With good according to its mind,
  Fill each kind and saturate
  With good agreeing with its fate,
  Willow and violet, maiden and man.
  
  The bitter-sweet, the haunting air,
  Creepeth, bloweth everywhere;
  It preys on all, all prey on it,
  Blooms in beauty, thinks in wit,
  Stings the strong with enterprise,
  Makes travellers long for Indian skies,
  And where it comes this courier fleet
  Fans in all hearts expectance sweet,
  As if to-morrow should redeem
  The vanished rose of evening's dream.
  
  By houses lies a fresher green,
  On men and maids a ruddier mien,
  As if time brought a new relay
  Of shining virgins every May,
  And Summer came to ripen maids
  To a beauty that not fades.
  
  The ground-pines wash their rusty green,
  The maple-tops their crimson tint,
  On the soft path each track is seen,
  The girl's foot leaves its neater print.
  
  The pebble loosened from the frost
  Asks of the urchin to be tost.
  
  In flint and marble beats a heart,
  The kind Earth takes her children's part,
  The green lane is the school-boy's friend,
  Low leaves his quarrel apprehend,
  The fresh ground loves his top and ball,
  The air rings jocund to his call,
  The brimming brook invites a leap,
  He dives the hollow, climbs the steep.
  
  The youth reads omens where he goes,
  And speaks all languages the rose.
  
  The wood-fly mocks with tiny noise
  The far halloo of human voice;
  The perfumed berry on the spray
  Smacks of faint memories far away.
  
  A subtle chain of countless rings
  The next unto the farthest brings,
  And, striving to be man, the worm
  Mounts through all the spires of form.
  
  I saw the bud-crowned Spring go forth,
  Stepping daily onward north
  To greet staid ancient cavaliers
  Filing single in stately train.
  
  And who, and who are the travellers?
  
  They were Night and Day, and Day and Night,
  Pilgrims wight with step forthright.
  
  I saw the Days deformed and low,
  Short and bent by cold and snow;
  The merry Spring threw wreaths on them,
  Flower-wreaths gay with bud and bell;
  Many a flower and many a gem,
  They were refreshed by the smell,
  They shook the snow from hats and shoon,
  They put their April raiment on;
  And those eternal forms,
  Unhurt by a thousand storms,
  Shot up to the height of the sky again,
  And danced as merrily as young men.
  
  I saw them mask their awful glance
  Sidewise meek in gossamer lids;
  And to speak my thought if none forbids.
  
  It was as if the eternal gods,
  Tired of their starry periods,
  Hid their majesty in cloth
  Woven of tulips and painted moth.
  
  On carpets green the maskers march
  Below May's well-appointed arch,
  Each star, each god, each grace amain,
  Every joy and virtue speed,
  Marching duly in her train,
  And fainting Nature at her need
  Is made whole again.
  
  'T was the vintage-day of field and wood,
  When magic wine for bards is brewed;
  Every tree and stem and chink
  Gushed with syrup to the brink.
  
  The air stole into the streets of towns,
  And betrayed the fund of joy
  To the high-school and medalled boy:
  On from hall to chamber ran,
  From youth to maid, from boy to man,
  To babes, and to old eyes as well.
  
  'Once more,' the old man cried, 'ye clouds,
  Airy turrets purple-piled,
  Which once my infancy beguiled,
  Beguile me with the wonted spell.
  
  I know ye skilful to convoy
  The total freight of hope and joy
  Into rude and homely nooks,
  Shed mocking lustres on shelf of books,
  On farmer's byre, on meadow-pipes,
  Or on a pool of dancing chips.
  
  I care not if the pomps you show
  Be what they soothfast appear,
  Or if yon realms in sunset glow
  Be bubbles of the atmosphere.
  
  And if it be to you allowed
  To fool me with a shining cloud,
  So only new griefs are consoled
  By new delights, as old by old,
  Frankly I will be your guest,
  Count your change and cheer the best.
  
  The world hath overmuch of pain,--
  If Nature give me joy again,
  Of such deceit I'll not complain.
  
  '
  Ah! well I mind the calendar,
  Faithful through a thousand years,
  Of the painted race of flowers,
  Exact to days, exact to hours,
  Counted on the spacious dial
  Yon broidered zodiac girds.
  
  I know the pretty almanac
  Of the punctual coming-back,
  On their due days, of the birds.
  
  I marked them yestermorn,
  A flock of finches darting
  Beneath the crystal arch,
  Piping, as they flew, a march,--
  Belike the one they used in parting
  Last year from yon oak or larch;
  Dusky sparrows in a crowd,
  Diving, darting northward free,
  Suddenly betook them all,
  Every one to his hole in the wall,
  Or to his niche in the apple-tree.
  
  I greet with joy the choral trains
  Fresh from palms and Cuba's canes.
  
  Best gems of Nature's cabinet,
  With dews of tropic morning wet,
  Beloved of children, bards, and Spring,
  O birds, your perfect virtues bring,
  Your song, your forms, your rhythmic flight,
  Your manners for the heart's delight,
  Nestle in hedge, or barn, or roof,
  Here weave your chamber weather-proof,
  Forgive our harms, and condescend
  To man, as to a lubber friend,
  And, generous, teach his awkward race
  Courage, and probity, and grace!
  Poets praise that hidden wine
  Hid in milk we drew
  At the barrier of Time,
  When our life was new.
  
  We had eaten fairy fruit,
  We were quick from head to foot,
  All the forms we look on shone
  As with diamond dews thereon.
  
  What cared we for costly joys,
  The Museum's far-fetched toys?
  
  Gleam of sunshine on the wall
  Poured a deeper cheer than all
  The revels of the Carnival.
  
  We a pine-grove did prefer
  To a marble theatre,
  Could with gods on mallows dine,
  Nor cared for spices or for wine.
  
  Wreaths of mist and rainbow spanned,
  Arch on arch, the grimmest land;
  Whistle of a woodland bird
  Made the pulses dance,
  Note of horn in valleys heard
  Filled the region with romance.
  
  None can tell how sweet,
  How virtuous, the morning air;
  Every accent vibrates well;
  Not alone the wood-bird's call,
  Or shouting boys that chase their ball,
  Pass the height of minstrel skill,
  But the ploughman's thoughtless cry,
  Lowing oxen, sheep that bleat,
  And the joiner's hammer-beat,
  Softened are above their will.
  
  All grating discords melt,
  No dissonant note is dealt,
  And though thy voice be shrill
  Like rasping file on steel,
  Such is the temper of the air,
  Echo waits with art and care,
  And will the faults of song repair.
  
  So by remote Superior Lake,
  And by resounding Mackinac,
  When northern storms and forests shake,
  And billows on the long beach break,
  The artful Air doth separate
  Note by note all sounds that grate,
  Smothering in her ample breast
  All but godlike words,
  Reporting to the happy ear
  Only purified accords.
  
  Strangely wrought from barking waves,
  Soft music daunts the Indian braves,--
  Convent-chanting which the child
  Hears pealing from the panther's cave
  And the impenetrable wild.
  
  One musician is sure,
  His wisdom will not fail,
  He has not tasted wine impure,
  Nor bent to passion frail.
  
  Age cannot cloud his memory,
  Nor grief untune his voice,
  Ranging down the ruled scale
  From tone of joy to inward wail,
  Tempering the pitch of all
  In his windy cave.
  
  He all the fables knows,
  And in their causes tells,--
  Knows Nature's rarest moods,
  Ever on her secret broods.
  
  The Muse of men is coy,
  Oft courted will not come;
  In palaces and market squares
  Entreated, she is dumb;
  But my minstrel knows and tells
  The counsel of the gods,
  Knows of Holy Book the spells,
  Knows the law of Night and Day,
  And the heart of girl and boy,
  The tragic and the gay,
  And what is writ on Table Round
  Of Arthur and his peers,
  What sea and land discoursing say
  In sidereal years.
  
  He renders all his lore
  In numbers wild as dreams,
  Modulating all extremes,--
  What the spangled meadow saith
  To the children who have faith;
  Only to children children sing,
  Only to youth will spring be spring.
  
  Who is the Bard thus magnified?
  
  When did he sing, and where abide?
  
  Chief of song where poets feast
  Is the wind-harp which thou seest
  In the casement at my side.
  
  AEolian harp,
  How strangely wise thy strain!
  Gay for youth, gay for youth,
  (Sweet is art, but sweeter truth,)
  In the hall at summer eve
  Fate and Beauty skilled to weave.
  
  From the eager opening strings
  Rung loud and bold the song.
  
  Who but loved the wind-harp's note?
  
  How should not the poet doat
  On its mystic tongue,
  With its primeval memory,
  Reporting what old minstrels said
  Of Merlin locked the harp within,--
  Merlin paying the pain of sin,
  Pent in a dungeon made of air,--
  And some attain his voice to hear,
  Words of pain and cries of fear,
  But pillowed all on melody,
  As fits the griefs of bards to be.
  
  And what if that all-echoing shell,
  Which thus the buried Past can tell,
  Should rive the Future, and reveal
  What his dread folds would fain conceal?
  
  It shares the secret of the earth,
  And of the kinds that owe her birth.
  
  Speaks not of self that mystic tone,
  But of the Overgods alone:
  It trembles to the cosmic breath,--
  As it heareth, so it saith;
  Obeying meek the primal Cause,
  It is the tongue of mundane laws:
  And this, at least, I dare affirm,
  Since genius too has bound and term,
  There is no bard in all the choir,
  Not Homer's self, the poet sire,
  Wise Milton's odes of pensive pleasure,
  Or Shakspeare, whom no mind can measure,
  Nor Collins' verse of tender pain,
  Nor Byron's clarion of disdain,
  Scott, the delight of generous boys,
  Or Wordsworth, Pan's recording voice,--
  Not one of all can put in verse,
  Or to this presence could rehearse,
  The sights and voices ravishing
  The boy knew on the hills in Spring,
  When pacing through the oaks he heard
  Sharp queries of the sentry-bird,
  The heavy grouse's sudden whirr,
  The rattle of the kingfisher;
  Saw bonfires of the harlot flies
  In the lowland, when day dies;
  Or marked, benighted and forlorn,
  The first far signal-fire of morn.
  
  These syllables that Nature spoke,
  And the thoughts that in him woke,
  Can adequately utter none
  Save to his ear the wind-harp lone.
  
  And best can teach its Delphian chord
  How Nature to the soul is moored,
  If once again that silent string,
  As erst it wont, would thrill and ring.
  
  Not long ago, at eventide,
  It seemed, so listening, at my side
  A window rose, and, to say sooth,
  I looked forth on the fields of youth:
  I saw fair boys bestriding steeds,
  I knew their forms in fancy weeds,
  Long, long concealed by sundering fates,
  Mates of my youth,--yet not my mates,
  Stronger and bolder far than I,
  With grace, with genius, well attired,
  And then as now from far admired,
  Followed with love
  They knew not of,
  With passion cold and shy.
  
  O joy, for what recoveries rare!
  Renewed, I breathe Elysian air,
  See youth's glad mates in earliest bloom,--
  Break not my dream, obtrusive tomb!
  Or teach thou, Spring! the grand recoil
  Of life resurgent from the soil
  Wherein was dropped the mortal spoil.
  
  Soft on the south-wind sleeps the haze!
  So on thy broad mystic van
  Lie the opal-coloured days,
  And waft the miracle to man.
  
  Soothsayer of the eldest gods,
  Repairer of what harms betide,
  Revealer of the inmost powers
  Prometheus proffered, Jove denied;
  Disclosing treasures more than true,
  Or in what far to-morrow due;
  Speaking by the tongues of flowers,
  By the ten-tongued laurel speaking,
  Singing by the oriole songs,
  Heart of bird the man's heart seeking;
  Whispering hints of treasure hid
  Under Morn's unlifted lid,
  Islands looming just beyond
  The dim horizon's utmost bound;--
  Who can, like thee, our rags upbraid,
  Or taunt us with our hope decayed?
  
  Or who like thee persuade,
  Making the splendour of the air,
  The morn and sparkling dew, a snare?
  
  Or who resent
  Thy genius, wiles, and blandishment?
  
  There is no orator prevails
  To beckon or persuade
  Like thee the youth or maid:
  Thy birds, thy songs, thy brooks, thy gales,
  Thy blooms, thy kinds,
  Thy echoes in the wilderness,
  Soothe pain, and age, and love's distress,
  Fire fainting will, and build heroic minds.
  
  For thou, O Spring! canst renovate
  All that high God did first create.
  
  Be still his arm and architect,
  Rebuild the ruin, mend defect;
  Chemist to vamp old worlds with new,
  Coat sea and sky with heavenlier blue,
  New-tint the plumage of the birds,
  And slough decay from grazing herds,
  Sweep ruins from the scarped mountain,
  Cleanse the torrent at the fountain,
  Purge alpine air by towns defiled,
  Bring to fair mother fairer child,
  Not less renew the heart and brain,
  Scatter the sloth, wash out the stain,
  Make the aged eye sun-clear,
  To parting soul bring grandeur near.
  
  Under gentle types, my Spring
  Masks the might of Nature's king,
  An energy that searches thorough
  From Chaos to the dawning morrow;
  Into all our human plight,
  The soul's pilgrimage and flight;
  In city or in solitude,
  Step by step, lifts bad to good,
  Without halting, without rest,
  Lifting Better up to Best;
  Planting seeds of knowledge pure,
  Through earth to ripen, through heaven endure.

• Merlin I Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Thy trivial harp will never please
  Or fill my craving ear;
  Its chords should ring as blows the breeze,
  Free, peremptory, clear.
  
  No jingling serenader's art,
  Nor tinkle of piano strings,
  Can make the wild blood start
  In its mystic springs.
  
  The kingly bard
  Must smite the chords rudely and hard,
  As with hammer or with mace,
  That they may render back
  Artful thunder that conveys
  Secrets of the solar track,
  Sparks of the supersolar blaze.
  
  Merlin's blows are strokes of fate,
  Chiming with the forest-tone,
  When boughs buffet boughs in the wood;
  Chiming with the gasp and moan
  Of the ice-imprisoned flood;
  With the pulse of manly hearts,
  With the voice of orators,
  With the din of city arts,
  With the cannonade of wars.
  
  With the marches of the brave,
  And prayers of might from martyrs' cave.
  
  Great is the art,
  Great be the manners of the bard!
  He shall not his brain encumber
  With the coil of rhythm and number,
  But, leaving rule and pale forethought,
  He shall aye climb
  For his rhyme:
  Pass in, pass in, the angels say,
  In to the upper doors;
  Nor count compartments of the floors,
  But mount to Paradise
  By the stairway of surprise.
  
  Blameless master of the games,
  King of sport that never shames;
  He shall daily joy dispense
  Hid in song's sweet influence.
  
  Things more cheerly live and go,
  What time the subtle mind
  Plays aloud the tune whereto
  Their pulses beat,
  And march their feet,
  And their members are combined.
  
  By Sybarites beguiled
  He shall no task decline;
  Merlin's mighty line,
  Extremes of nature reconciled,
  Bereaved a tyrant of his will,
  And made the lion mild.
  
  Songs can the tempest still,
  Scattered on the stormy air,
  Mould the year to fair increase,
  And bring in poetic peace.
  
  He shall not seek to weave,
  In weak unhappy times,
  Efficacious rhymes;
  Wait his returning strength,
  Bird, that from the nadir's floor,
  To the zenith's top could soar,
  The soaring orbit of the muse exceeds that journey's length!
  Nor, profane, affect to hit
  Or compass that by meddling wit,
  Which only the propitious mind
  Publishes when 'tis inclined.
  
  There are open hours
  When the god's will sallies free,
  And the dull idiot might see
  The flowing fortunes of a thousand years;
  Sudden, at unawares,
  Self-moved fly-to the doors,
  Nor sword of angels could reveal
  What they conceal.

• Merlin II Read Poem Log in to favourite

  The rhyme of the poet
  Modulates the king's affairs,
  Balance-loving nature
  Made all things in pairs.
  
  To every foot its antipode,
  Each color with its counter glowed,
  To every tone beat answering tones,
  Higher or graver;
  Flavor gladly blends with flavor;
  Leaf answers leaf upon the bough,
  And match the paired cotyledons.
  
  Hands to hands, and feet to feet,
  In one body grooms and brides;
  Eldest rite, two married sides
  In every mortal meet.
  
  Light's far furnace shines,
  Smelting balls and bars,
  Forging double stars,
  Glittering twins and trines.
  
  The animals are sick with love,
  Lovesick with rhyme;
  Each with all propitious Time
  Into chorus wove.
  
  Like the dancers' ordered band,
  Thoughts come also hand in hand,
  In equal couples mated,
  Or else alternated,
  Adding by their mutual gage
  One to other health and age.
  
  Solitary fancies go
  Short-lived wandering to and fro,
  Most like to bachelors,
  Or an ungiven maid,
  Not ancestors,
  With no posterity to make the lie afraid,
  Or keep truth undecayed.
  
  Perfect paired as eagle's wings,
  Justice is the rhyme of things;
  Trade and counting use
  The serf-same tuneful muse;
  And Nemesis,
  Who with even matches odd,
  Who athwart space redresses
  The partial wrong,
  Fills the just period,
  And finishes the song.
  
  Subtle rhymes with ruin rife
  Murmur in the house of life,
  Sung by the Sisters as they spin;
  In perfect time and measure, they
  Build and unbuild our echoing clay,
  As the two twilights of the day
  Fold us music-drunken in.

• Merlin's Song Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Of Merlin wise I learned a song,--
  Sing it low or sing it loud,
  It is mightier than the strong,
  And punishes the proud.
  
  I sing it to the surging crowd,--
  Good men it will calm and cheer,
  Bad men it will chain and cage.
  
  In the heart of the music peals a strain
  Which only angels hear;
  Whether it waken joy or rage,
  Hushed myriads hark in vain,
  Yet they who hear it shed their age,
  And take their youth again.

• Merops Read Poem Log in to favourite

  What care I, so they stand the same,—
  Things of the heavenly mind,—
  How long the power to give them fame
  Tarries yet behind?
  
  Thus far to-day your favors reach,
  O fair, appeasing Presences!
  Ye taught my lips a single speech,
  And a thousand silences.
  
  Space grants beyond his fated road
  No inch to the god of day,
  And copious language still bestowed
  One word, no more, to say.

• Mithridates Read Poem Log in to favourite

  I cannot spare water or wine,
  Tobacco-leaf, or poppy, or rose;
  From the earth-poles to the Line,
  All between that works or grows,
  Every thing is kin of mine.
  
  Give me agates for my meat,
  Give me cantharids to eat,
  From air and ocean bring me foods,
  From all zones and altitudes.
  
  From all natures, sharp and slimy,
  Salt and basalt, wild and tame,
  Tree, and lichen, ape, sea-lion,
  Bird and reptile be my game.
  
  Ivy for my fillet band,
  Blinding dogwood in my hand,
  Hemlock for my sherbet cull me,
  And the prussic juice to lull me,
  Swing me in the upas boughs,
  Vampire-fanned, when I carouse.
  
  Too long shut in strait and few,
  Thinly dieted on dew,
  I will use the world, and sift it,
  To a thousand humors shift it,
  As you spin a cherry.
  
  O doleful ghosts, and goblins merry,
  O all you virtues, methods, mights;
  Means, appliances, delights;
  Reputed wrongs, and braggart rights;
  Smug routine, and things allowed;
  Minorities, things under cloud!
  Hither! take me, use me, fill me,
  Vein and artery, though ye kill me;
  God! I will not be an owl,
  But sun me in the Capitol.

• Monadnoc Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Thousand minstrels woke within me,
  Our music's in the hills; —
  Gayest pictures rose to win me,
  Leopard-colored rills.
  
  Up!—If thou knew'st who calls
  To twilight parks of beech and pine,
  High over the river intervals,
  Above the ploughman's highest line,
  Over the owner's farthest walls;—
  Up!—where the airy citadel
  O'erlooks the purging landscape's swell.
  
  Let not unto the stones the day
  Her lily and rose, her sea and land display;
  Read the celestial sign!
  Lo! the South answers to the North;
  Bookworm, break this sloth urbane;
  A greater Spirit bids thee forth,
  Than the gray dreams which thee detain.
  
  Mark how the climbing Oreads
  Beckon thee to their arcades;
  Youth, for a moment free as they,
  Teach thy feet to feel the ground,
  Ere yet arrive the wintry day
  When Time thy feet has bound.
  
  Accept the bounty of thy birth;
  Taste the lordship of the earth.
  
  I heard and I obeyed,
  Assured that he who pressed the claim,
  Well-known, but loving not a name,
  Was not to be gainsaid.
  
  Ere yet the summoning voice was still,
  I turned to Cheshire's haughty hill.
  
  From the fixed cone the cloud-rack flowed
  Like ample banner flung abroad
  Round about, a hundred miles,
  With invitation to the sea, and to the bordering isles.
  
  In his own loom's garment drest,
  By his own bounty blest,
  Fast abides this constant giver,
  Pouring many a cheerful river;
  To far eyes, an aërial isle,
  Unploughed, which finer spirits pile,
  Which morn and crimson evening paint
  For bard, for lover, and for saint;
  The country's core,
  Inspirer, prophet evermore,
  Pillar which God aloft had set
  So that men might it not forget,
  It should be their life's ornament,
  And mix itself with each event;
  Their calendar and dial,
  Barometer, and chemic phial,
  Garden of berries, perch of birds,
  Pasture of pool-haunting herds,
  Graced by each change of sum untold,
  Earth-baking heat, stone-cleaving cold.
  
  The Titan minds his sky-affairs,
  Rich rents and wide alliance shares;
  Mysteries of color daily laid
  By the great sun in light and shade,
  And, sweet varieties of chance,
  And the mystic seasons' dance,
  And thief-like step of liberal hours
  Which thawed the snow-drift into flowers.
  
  O wondrous craft of plant and stone
  By eldest science done and shown!
  Happy, I said, whose home is here,
  Fair fortunes to the mountaineer!
  Boon nature to his poorest shed
  Has royal pleasure-grounds outspread.
  
  Intent I searched the region round,
  And in low hut my monarch found.
  
  He was no eagle and no earl,
  Alas! my foundling was a churl,
  With heart of cat, and eyes of bug,
  Dull victim of his pipe and mug;
  Woe is me for my hopes' downfall!
  Lord! is yon squalid peasant all
  That this proud nursery could breed
  For God's vicegerency and stead?
  
  Time out of mind this forge of ores,
  Quarry of spars in mountain pores,
  Old cradle, hunting ground, and bier
  Of wolf and otter, bear, and deer;
  Well-built abode of many a race;
  Tower of observance searching space;
  Factory of river, and of rain;
  Link in the alps' globe-girding chain;
  By million changes skilled to tell
  What in the Eternal standeth well,
  And what obedient nature can,—
  Is this colossal talisman
  Kindly to creature, blood, and kind,
  And speechless to the master's mind?
  
  I thought to find the patriots
  In whom the stock of freedom roots.
  
  To myself I oft recount
  Tales of many a famous mount.
  
  —
  Wales, Scotland, Uri, Hungary's dells,
  Roys, and Scanderbegs, and Tells.
  
  Here now shall nature crowd her powers,
  Her music, and her meteors,
  And, lifting man to the blue deep
  Where stars their perfect courses keep,
  Like wise preceptor lure his eye
  To sound the science of the sky,
  And carry learning to its height
  Of untried power and sane delight;
  The Indian cheer, the frosty skies
  Breed purer wits, inventive eyes,
  Eyes that frame cities where none be,
  And hands that stablish what these see:
  And, by the moral of his place,
  Hint summits of heroic grace;
  Man in these crags a fastness find
  To fight pollution of the mind;
  In the wide thaw and ooze of wrong,
  Adhere like this foundation strong,
  The insanity of towns to stem
  With simpleness for stratagem.
  
  But if the brave old mould is broke,
  And end in clowns the mountain-folk,
  In tavern cheer and tavern joke,—
  Sink, O mountain! in the swamp,
  Hide in thy skies, O sovereign lap!
  Perish like leaves the highland breed!
  No sire survive, no son succeed!
  Soft! let not the offended muse
  Toil's hard hap with scorn accuse.
  
  Many hamlets sought I then,
  Many farms of mountain men;—
  Found I not a minstrel seed,
  But men of bone, and good at need.
  
  Rallying round a parish steeple
  Nestle warm the highland people,
  Coarse and boisterous, yet mild,
  Strong as giant, slow as child,
  Smoking in a squalid room,
  Where yet the westland breezes come.
  
  Close hid in those rough guises lurk
  Western magicians, here they work;
  Sweat and season are their arts,
  Their talismans are ploughs and carts;
  And well the youngest can command
  Honey from the frozen land,
  With sweet hay the swamp adorn,
  Change the running sand to corn,
  For wolves and foxes, lowing herds,
  And for cold mosses, cream and curds;
  Weave wood to canisters and mats,
  Drain sweet maple-juice in vats.
  
  No bird is safe that cuts the air,
  From their rifle or their snare;
  No fish in river or in lake,
  But their long hands it thence will take;
  And the country's iron face
  Like wax their fashioning skill betrays,
  To fill the hollows, sink the hills,
  Bridge gulfs, drain swamps, build dams and mills,
  And fit the bleak and howling place
  For gardens of a finer race,
  The world-soul knows his own affair,
  Fore-looking when his hands prepare
  For the next ages men of mould,
  Well embodied, well ensouled,
  He cools the present's fiery glow,
  Sets the life pulse strong, but slow.
  
  Bitter winds and fasts austere.
  
  His quarantines and grottos, where
  He slowly cures decrepit flesh,
  And brings it infantile and fresh.
  
  These exercises are the toys
  And games with which he breathes his boys.
  
  They bide their time, and well can prove,
  If need were, their line from Jove,
  Of the same stuff, and so allayed,
  As that whereof the sun is made;
  And of that fibre quick and strong
  Whose throbs are love, whose thrills are song.
  
  Now in sordid weeds they sleep,
  Their secret now in dullness keep.
  
  Yet, will you learn our ancient speech,
  These the masters who can teach,
  Fourscore or a hundred words
  All their vocal muse affords,
  These they turn in other fashion
  Than the writer or the parson.
  
  I can spare the college-bell,
  And the learned lecture well.
  
  Spare the clergy and libraries,
  Institutes and dictionaries,
  For the hardy English root
  Thrives here unvalued underfoot.
  
  Rude poets of the tavern hearth,
  Squandering your unquoted mirth,
  Which keeps the ground and never soars,
  While Jake retorts and Reuben roars,
  Tough and screaming as birch-bark,
  Goes like bullet to its mark,
  While the solid curse and jeer
  Never balk the waiting ear:
  To student ears keen-relished jokes
  On truck, and stock, and farming-folks,—
  Nought the mountain yields thereof
  But savage health and sinews tough.
  
  On the summit as I stood,
  O'er the wide floor of plain and flood,
  Seemed to me the towering hill
  Was not altogether still,
  But a quiet sense conveyed;
  If I err not, thus it said:
  Many feet in summer seek
  Betimes my far-appearing peak;
  In the dreaded winter-time,
  None save dappling shadows climb
  Under clouds my lonely head,
  Old as the sun, old almost as the shade.
  
  And comest thou
  To see strange forests and new snow,
  And tread uplifted land?
  
  And leavest thou thy lowland race,
  Here amid clouds to stand,
  And would'st be my companion,
  Where I gaze
  And shall gaze
  When forests fall, and man is gone,
  Over tribes and over times
  As the burning Lyre
  Nearing me,
  With its stars of northern fire,
  In many a thousand years.
  
  Ah! welcome, if thou bring
  My secret in thy brain;
  To mountain-top may muse's wing
  With good allowance strain.
  
  Gentle pilgrim, if thou know
  The gamut old of Pan,
  And how the hills began,
  The frank blessings of the hill
  Fall on thee, as fall they will.
  
  'Tis the law of bush and stone—
  Each can only take his own.
  
  Let him heed who can and will,—
  Enchantment fixed me here
  To stand the hurts of time, until
  In mightier chant I disappear.
  
  If thou trowest
  How the chemic eddies play
  Pole to pole, and what they say,
  And that these gray crags
  Not on crags are hung,
  But beads are of a rosary
  On prayer and music strung;
  And, credulous, through the granite seeming
  Seest the smile of Reason beaming;
  Can thy style-discerning eye
  The hidden-working Builder spy,
  Who builds, yet makes no chips, no din,
  With hammer soft as snow-flake's flight;
  Knowest thou this?
  
  O pilgrim, wandering not amiss!
  Already my rocks lie light,
  And soon my cone will spin.
  
  For the world was built in order,
  And the atoms march in tune,
  Rhyme the pipe, and time the warder,
  Cannot forget the sun, the moon.
  
  Orb and atom forth they prance,
  When they hear from far the rune,
  None so backward in the troop,
  When the music and the dance
  Reach his place and circumstance,
  But knows the sun-creating sound,
  And, though a pyramid, will bound.
  
  Monadnoc is a mountain strong,
  Tall and good my kind among,
  But well I know, no mountain can
  Measure with a perfect man;
  For it is on Zodiack's writ,
  Adamant is soft to wit;
  And when the greater comes again,
  With my music in his brain,
  I shall pass as glides my shadow
  Daily over hill and meadow.
  
  Through all time
  I hear the approaching feet
  Along the flinty pathway beat
  Of him that cometh, and shall come,—
  Of him who shall as lightly bear
  My daily load of woods and streams,
  As now the round sky-cleaving boat
  Which never strains its rocky beams,
  Whose timbers, as they silent float,
  Alps and Caucasus uprear,
  And the long Alleghanies here,
  And all town-sprinkled lands that be,
  Sailing through stars with all their history.
  
  Every morn I lift my head,
  Gaze o'er New England underspread
  South from Saint Lawrence to the Sound,
  From Katshill east to the sea-bound.
  
  Anchored fast for many an age,
  I await the bard and sage,
  Who in large thoughts, like fair pearl-seed,
  Shall string Monadnoc like a bead.
  
  Comes that cheerful troubadour,
  This mound shall throb his face before,
  As when with inward fires and pain
  It rose a bubble from the plain.
  
  When he cometh, I shall shed
  From this well-spring in my head
  Fountain drop of spicier worth
  Than all vintage of the earth.
  
  There's fruit upon my barren soil
  Costlier far than wine or oil;
  There's a berry blue and gold,—
  Autumn-ripe its juices hold,
  Sparta's stoutness, Bethlehem's heart,
  Asia's rancor, Athens' art,
  Slowsure Britain's secular might,
  And the German's inward sight;
  I will give my son to eat
  Best of Pan's immortal meat,
  Bread to eat and juice to drink,
  So the thoughts that he shall think
  Shall not be forms of stars, but stars,
  Nor pictures pale, but Jove and Mars.
  
  He comes, but not of that race bred
  Who daily climb my specular head.
  
  Oft as morning wreathes my scarf,
  Fled the last plumule of the dark,
  Pants up hither the spruce clerk
  From South-Cove and City-wharf;
  I take him up my rugged sides,
  Half-repentant, scant of breath,—
  Bead-eyes my granite chaos show,
  And my midsummer snow;
  Open the daunting map beneath,—
  All his county, sea and land,
  Dwarfed to measure of his hand;
  His day's ride is a furlong space,
  His city tops a glimmering haze:
  I plant his eyes on the sky-hoop bounding;—
  See there the grim gray rounding
  Of the bullet of the earth
  Whereon ye sail,
  Tumbling steep
  In the uncontinented deep;—
  He looks on that, and he turns pale:
  'Tis even so, this treacherous kite,
  Farm-furrowed, town-incrusted sphere,
  Thoughtless of its anxious freight,
  Plunges eyeless on for ever,
  And he, poor parasite,—
  Cooped in a ship he cannot steer,
  Who is the captain he knows not,
  Port or pilot trows not,—
  Risk or ruin he must share.
  
  I scowl on him with my cloud,
  With my north wind chill his blood,
  I lame him clattering down the rocks,
  And to live he is in fear.
  
  Then, at last, I let him down
  Once more into his dapper town,
  To chatter frightened to his clan,
  And forget me, if he can.
  
  As in the old poetic fame
  The gods are blind and lame,
  And the simular despite
  Betrays the more abounding might,
  So call not waste that barren cone
  Above the floral zone,
  Where forests starve:
  It is pure use;
  What sheaves like those which here we glean and bind,
  Of a celestial Ceres, and the Muse?
  
  Ages are thy days,
  Thou grand expressor of the present tense,
  And type of permanence,
  Firm ensign of the fatal Being,
  Amid these coward shapes of joy and grief
  That will not bide the seeing.
  
  Hither we bring
  Our insect miseries to the rocks,
  And the whole flight with pestering wing
  Vanish and end their murmuring,
  Vanish beside these dedicated blocks,
  Which, who can tell what mason laid?
  
  Spoils of a front none need restore,
  Replacing frieze and architrave;
  Yet flowers each stone rosette and metope brave,
  Still is the haughty pile erect
  Of the old building Intellect.
  
  Complement of human kind,
  Having us at vantage still,
  Our sumptuous indigence,
  O barren mound! thy plenties fill.
  
  We fool and prate,—
  Thou art silent and sedate.
  
  To million kinds and times one sense
  The constant mountain doth dispense,
  Shedding on all its snows and leaves,
  One joy it joys, one grief it grieves.
  
  Thou seest, O watchman tall!
  Our towns and races grow and fall,
  And imagest the stable Good
  For which we all our lifetime grope,
  In shifting form the formless mind;
  And though the substance us elude,
  We in thee the shadow find.
  
  Thou in our astronomy
  An opaker star,
  Seen, haply, from afar,
  Above the horizon's hoop.
  
  A moment by the railway troop,
  As o'er some bolder height they speed,—
  By circumspect ambition,
  By errant Gain,
  By feasters, and the frivolous,—
  Recallest us,
  And makest sane.
  
  Mute orator! well-skilled to plead,
  And send conviction without phrase,
  Thou dost supply
  The shortness of our days,
  And promise, on thy Founder's truth,
  Long morrow to this mortal youth.

• Musketaquid Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Because I was content with these poor fields,
  Low open meads, slender and sluggish streams,
  And found a home in haunts which others scorned,
  The partial wood-gods overpaid my love,
  And granted me the freedom of their state,
  And in their secret senate have prevailed
  With the dear dangerous lords that rule our life,
  Made moon and planets parties to their bond,
  And pitying through my solitary wont
  Shot million rays of thought and tenderness.
  
  For me in showers, in sweeping showers, the spring
  Visits the valley:—break away the clouds,
  I bathe in the morn's soft and silvered air,
  And loiter willing by yon loitering stream.
  
  Sparrows far off, and, nearer, yonder bird
  Blue-coated, flying before, from tree to tree,
  Courageous sing a delicate overture,
  To lead the tardy concert of the year.
  
  Onward, and nearer draws the sun of May,
  And wide around the marriage of the plants
  Is sweetly solemnized; then flows amain
  The surge of summer's beauty; dell and crag,
  Hollow and lake, hill-side, and pine arcade,
  Are touched with genius.
  
  Yonder ragged cliff
  Has thousand faces in a thousand hours.
  
  Here friendly landlords, men ineloquent,
  Inhabit, and subdue the spacious farms.
  
  Traveller! to thee, perchance, a tedious road,
  Or soon forgotten picture,— to these men
  The landscape is an armory of powers,
  Which, one by one, they know to draw and use.
  
  They harness, beast, bird, insect, to their work;
  They prove the virtues of each bed of rock,
  And, like a chemist 'mid his loaded jars,
  Draw from each stratum its adapted use,
  To drug their crops, or weapon their arts withal.
  
  They turn the frost upon their chemic heap;
  They set the wind to winnow vetch and grain;
  They thank the spring-flood for its fertile slime;
  And, on cheap summit-levels of the snow,
  Slide with the sledge to inaccessible woods,
  O'er meadows bottomless.
  
  So, year by year,
  They fight the elements with elements,
  (That one would say, meadow and forest walked
  Upright in human shape to rule their like.
  
  )
  And by the order in the field disclose,
  The order regnant in the yeoman's brain.
  
  What these strong masters wrote at large in miles,
  I followed in small copy in my acre:
  For there's no rood has not a star above it;
  The cordial quality of pear or plum
  Ascends as gladly in a single tree,
  As in broad orchards resonant with bees;
  And every atom poises for itself,
  And for the whole.
  
  The gentle Mother of all
  Showed me the lore of colors and of sounds;
  The innumerable tenements of beauty;
  The miracle of generative force;
  Far-reaching concords of astronomy
  Felt in the plants and in the punctual birds;
  Mainly, the linked purpose of the whole;
  And, chiefest prize, found I true liberty,
  The home of homes plain-dealing Nature gave.
  
  The polite found me impolite; the great
  Would mortify me, but in vain:
  I am a willow of the wilderness,
  Loving the wind that bent me.
  
  All my hurts
  My garden-spade can heal.
  
  A woodland walk,
  A wild rose, or rock-loving columbine,
  Salve my worst wounds, and leave no cicatrice.
  
  For thus the wood-gods murmured in my ear,
  Dost love our manners?
  
  Canst thou silent lie?
  
  Canst thou, thy pride forgot, like nature pass
  Into the winter night's extinguished mood?
  
  Canst thou shine now, then darkle,
  And being latent, feel thyself no less?
  
  As when the all-worshipped moon attracts the eye,
  The river, hill, stems, foliage, are obscure,
  Yet envies none, none are unenviable.

• My Garden Read Poem Log in to favourite

  If I could put my woods in song
  And tell what's there enjoyed,
  All men would to my gardens throng,
  And leave the cities void.
  
  In my plot no tulips blow,—
  Snow-loving pines and oaks instead;
  And rank the savage maples grow
  From Spring's faint flush to Autumn red.
  
  My garden is a forest ledge
  Which older forests bound;
  The banks slope down to the blue lake-edge,
  Then plunge to depths profound.
  
  Here once the Deluge ploughed,
  Laid the terraces, one by one;
  Ebbing later whence it flowed,
  They bleach and dry in the sun.
  
  The sowers made haste to depart,—
  The wind and the birds which sowed it;
  Not for fame, nor by rules of art,
  Planted these, and tempests flowed it.
  
  Waters that wash my garden-side
  Play not in Nature's lawful web,
  They heed not moon or solar tide,—
  Five years elapse from flood to ebb.
  
  Hither hasted, in old time, Jove,
  And every god,—none did refuse;
  And be sure at last came Love,
  And after Love, the Muse.
  
  Keen ears can catch a syllable,
  As if one spake to another,
  In the hemlocks tall, untamable,
  And what the whispering grasses smother.
  
  Æolian harps in the pine
  Ring with the song of the Fates;
  Infant Bacchus in the vine,—
  Far distant yet his chorus waits.
  
  Canst thou copy in verse one chime
  Of the wood-bell's peal and cry,
  Write in a book the morning's prime,
  Or match with words that tender sky?
  
  Wonderful verse of the gods,
  Of one import, of varied tone;
  They chant the bliss of their abodes
  To man imprisoned in his own.
  
  Ever the words of the gods resound;
  But the porches of man's ear
  Seldom in this low life's round
  Are unsealed, that he may hear.
  
  Wandering voices in the air
  And murmurs in the wold
  Speak what I cannot declare,
  Yet cannot all withhold.
  
  When the shadow fell on the lake,
  The whirlwind in ripples wrote
  Air-bells of fortune that shine and break,
  And omens above thought.
  
  But the meanings cleave to the lake,
  Cannot be carried in book or urn;
  Go thy ways now, come later back,
  On waves and hedges still they burn.
  
  These the fates of men forecast,
  Of better men than live to-day;
  If who can read them comes at last
  He will spell in the sculpture,'Stay.
  
  '

• Nature Read Poem Log in to favourite

  I.
  
  Winters know
  Easily to shed the snow,
  And the untaught Spring is wise
  In cowslips and anemones.
  
  Nature, hating art and pains,
  Baulks and baffles plotting brains;
  Casualty and Surprise
  Are the apples of her eyes;
  But she dearly loves the poor,
  And, by marvel of her own,
  Strikes the loud pretender down.
  
  For Nature listens in the rose,
  And hearkens in the berry's bell,
  To help her friends, to plague her foes,
  And like wise God she judges well.
  
  Yet doth much her love excel
  To the souls that never fell,
  To swains that live in happiness,
  And do well because they please,
  Who walk in ways that are unfamed,
  And feats achieve before they're named.
  
  II.
  
  She is gamesome and good,
  But of mutable mood,--
  No dreary repeater now and again,
  She will be all things to all men.
  
  She who is old, but nowise feeble,
  Pours her power into the people,
  Merry and manifold without bar,
  Makes and moulds them what they are,
  And what they call their city way
  Is not their way, but hers,
  And what they say they made to-day,
  They learned of the oaks and firs.
  
  She spawneth men as mallows fresh,
  Hero and maiden, flesh of her flesh;
  She drugs her water and her wheat
  With the flavours she finds meet,
  And gives them what to drink and eat;
  And having thus their bread and growth,
  They do her bidding, nothing loath.
  
  What's most theirs is not their own,
  But borrowed in atoms from iron and stone,
  And in their vaunted works of Art
  The master-stroke is still her part.

• Nemesis Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Already blushes in thy cheek
  The bosom-thought which thou must speak;
  The bird, how far it haply roam
  By cloud or isle, is flying home;
  The maiden fears, and fearing runs
  Into the charmed snare she shuns;
  And every man, in love or pride,
  Of his fate is never wide.
  
  Will a woman's fan the ocean smooth?
  
  Or prayers the stony Parcae sooth,
  Or coax the thunder from its mark?
  
  Or tapers light the chaos dark?
  
  In spite of Virtue and the Muse,
  Nemesis will have her dues,
  And all our struggles and our toils
  Tighter wind the giant coils.

• Ode Read Poem Log in to favourite

  O tenderly the haughty day
  Fills his blue urn with fire;
  One morn is in the mighty heaven,
  And one in our desire.
  
  The cannon booms from town to town,
  Our pulses are not less,
  The joy-bells chime their tidings down,
  Which children's voices bless.
  
  For He that flung the broad blue fold
  O'er-mantling land and sea,
  One third part of the sky unrolled
  For the banner of the free.
  
  The men are ripe of Saxon kind
  To build an equal state,--
  To take the statute from the mind,
  And make of duty fate.
  
  United States! the ages plead,--
  Present and Past in under-song,--
  Go put your creed into your deed,
  Nor speak with double tongue.
  
  For sea and land don't understand,
  Nor skies without a frown
  See rights for which the one hand fights
  By the other cloven down.
  
  Be just at home; then write your scroll
  Of honour o'er the sea,
  And bid the broad Atlantic roll,
  A ferry of the free.
  
  And, henceforth, there shall be no chain,
  Save underneath the sea
  The wires shall murmur through the main
  Sweet songs of LIBERTY.
  
  The conscious stars accord above,
  The waters wild below,
  And under, through the cable wove,
  Her fiery errands go.
  
  For He that worketh high and wise,
  Nor pauses in his plan,
  Will take the sun out of the skies
  Ere freedom out of man.
  
  Ode Sung In The Town Hall 1857

• Ode To Beauty Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Who gave thee, O Beauty!
  The keys of this breast,
  Too credulous lover
  Of blest and unblest?
  
  Say when in lapsed ages
  Thee knew I of old;
  Or what was the service
  For which I was sold?
  
  When first my eyes saw thee,
  I found me thy thrall,
  By magical drawings,
  Sweet tyrant of all!
  I drank at thy fountain
  False waters of thirst;
  Thou intimate stranger,
  Thou latest and first!
  Thy dangerous glances
  Make women of men;
  New-born we are melting
  Into nature again.
  
  Lavish, lavish promiser,
  Nigh persuading gods to err,
  Guest of million painted forms
  Which in turn thy glory warms,
  The frailest leaf, the mossy bark,
  The acorn's cup, the raindrop's arc,
  The swinging spider's silver line,
  The ruby of the drop of wine,
  The shining pebble of the pond,
  Thou inscribest with a bond
  In thy momentary play
  Would bankrupt Nature to repay.
  
  Ah! what avails it
  To hide or to shun
  Whom the Infinite One
  Hath granted his throne?
  
  The heaven high over
  Is the deep's lover,
  The sun and sea
  Informed by thee,
  Before me run,
  And draw me on,
  Yet fly me still,
  As Fate refuses
  To me the heart Fate for me chooses,
  Is it that my opulent soul
  Was mingled from the generous whole,
  Sea valleys and the deep of skies
  Furnished several supplies,
  And the sands whereof I'm made
  Draw me to them self-betrayed?
  
  I turn the proud portfolios
  Which hold the grand designs
  Of Salvator, of Guercino,
  And Piranesi's lines.
  
  I hear the lofty Pæans
  Of the masters of the shell,
  Who heard the starry music,
  And recount the numbers well:
  Olympian bards who sung
  Divine Ideas below,
  Which always find us young,
  And always keep us so.
  
  Oft in streets or humblest places
  I detect far wandered graces,
  Which from Eden wide astray
  In lowly homes have lost their way.
  
  Thee gliding through the sea of form,
  Like the lightning through the storm,
  Somewhat not to be possessed,
  Somewhat not to be caressed,
  No feet so fleet could ever find,
  No perfect form could ever bind.
  
  Thou eternal fugitive
  Hovering over all that live,
  Quick and skilful to inspire
  Sweet extravagant desire,
  Starry space and lily bell
  Filling with thy roseate smell,
  Wilt not give the lips to taste
  Of the nectar which thou hast.
  
  All that's good and great with thee
  Stands in deep conspiracy.
  
  Thou hast bribed the dark and lonely
  To report thy features only,
  And the cold and purple morning
  Itself with thoughts of thee adorning,
  The leafy dell, the city mart,
  Equal trophies of thine art,
  E'en the flowing azure air
  Thou hast touched for my despair,
  And if I languish into dreams,
  Again I meet the ardent beams.
  
  Queen of things! I dare not die
  In Being's deeps past ear and eye,
  Lest there I find the same deceiver,
  And be the sport of Fate forever.
  
  Dread power, but dear! if God thou be,
  Unmake me quite, or give thyself to me.

• Ode:Inscribed to W.H. Channing Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Though loath to grieve
  The evil time's sole patriot,
  I cannot leave
  My honeyed thought
  For the priest's cant,
  Or statesman's rant.
  
  If I refuse
  My study for their politic,
  Which at the best is trick,
  The angry Muse
  Puts confusion in my brain.
  
  But who is he that prates
  Of the culture of mankind,
  Of better arts and life?
  
  Go, blindworm, go,
  Behold the famous States
  Harrying Mexico
  With rifle and with knife!
  Or who, with accent bolder
  Dare praise the freedom-loving mountaineer?
  
  I found by thee, O rushing Contoocook!
  And in thy valleys, Agiochook!
  The jackals of the Negro-holder.
  
  The God who made New Hampshire
  Taunted the lofty land
  With little men;—
  Small bat and wren
  House in the oak:—
  If earth-fire cleave
  The upheaved land, and bury the folk,
  The southern crocodile would grieve.
  
  Virtue palters; Right is hence;
  Freedom praised, but hid;
  Funeral eloquence
  Rattles the coffin lid.
  
  What boots thy zeal,
  O glowing friend,
  That would indignant rend
  The northland from the south?
  
  Wherefore?
  
  to what good end?
  
  Boston Bay and Bunker Hill
  Would serve things still;—
  Things are of the snake.
  
  The horseman serves the horse
  The neatherd serves the neat,
  The merchant serves the purse,
  The eater serves his meat;
  'Tis the day of the chattel,
  Web to weave, and corn to grind;
  Things are in the saddle,
  And ride mankind.
  
  There are two laws discrete,
  Not reconciled,—
  Law for man, and law for thing;
  The last builds town and fleet,
  But it runs wild,
  And doth the man unking.
  
  'Tis fit the forest fall,
  The steep be graded,
  The mountain tunneled,
  The sand shaded,
  The orchard planted,
  The glebe tilled,
  The prairie granted
  The steamer built.
  
  Let man serve law for man;
  Live for friendship, live for love,
  For truth's and harmony's behoof;
  The state may follow how it can,
  As Olympus follows Jove.
  
  Yet do not I implore
  The wrinkled shopman to my sounding woods,
  Nor did the unwilling senator
  Ask votes of thrushes in the solitudes.
  
  Everyone to his chosen work—
  Foolish hands may mix and mar;
  Wise and sure the issues are.
  
  Round they roll till dark is light,
  Sex to sex, and even to odd;—
  The overgod
  Who marries Right to Might,
  Who peoples, unpeoples,—
  He who exterminates
  Races by stronger races,
  Black by white faces,—
  Knows to bring honey
  Out of the lion;
  Grafts gentlest scion
  On pirate and Turk.
  
  The Cossack eats Poland,
  Like stolen fruit;
  Her last noble is ruined,
  Her last poet mute;
  Straight, into double band
  The victors divide;
  Half for freedom strike and stand;—
  The astonished Muse finds thousands at her side.

• Painting And Sculpture Read Poem Log in to favourite

  The sinful painter drapes his goddess warm,
  Because she still is naked, being drest;
  The godlike sculptor will not so deform
  Beauty, which bones and flesh enough invest.

• Poems Read Poem Log in to favourite

  AND when I am entombèd in my place,
  Be it remembered of a single man,
  He never, though he dearly loved his race,
  For fear of human eyes swerved from his plan.
  
  OH what is Heaven but the fellowship
  Of minds that each can stand against the world
  By its own meek and incorruptible will?
  
  THE days pass over me
  And I am still the same;
  The aroma of my life is gone
  With the flower with which it came.

• Politics Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Gold and iron are good
  To buy iron and gold;
  All earth's fleece and food
  For their like are sold.
  
  Hinted Merlin wise,
  Proved Napoleon great,
  Nor kind nor coinage buys
  Aught above its rate.
  
  Fear, Craft, and Avarice
  Cannot rear a State.
  
  Out of dust to build
  What is more than dust,--
  Walls Amphion piled
  Phoebus stablish must.
  
  When the Muses nine
  When the Virtues meet,
  Find to their design
  An Atlantic seat,
  By green orchard boughs
  Fended from the heat,
  Where the statesman ploughs
  Furrow for the wheat,--
  When the Church is social worth,
  When the state-house is the hearth,
  Then the perfect State is come,
  The republican at home.

• Quatrains Read Poem Log in to favourite

  S.
  
  H.
  
  With beams December planets dart
  His cold eye truth and conduct scanned,
  July was in his sunny heart,
  October in his liberal hand.
  
  A.
  
  H.
  
  High was her heart, and yet was well inclined,
  Her manners made of bounty well refined;
  Far capitals, and marble courts, her eye still seemed to see,
  Minstrels, and kings, and high-born dames, and of the best that be.
  
  "SUUM CUIQUE.
  
  "
  Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill?
  
  Pay every debt, as if God wrote the bill.
  
  HUSH!
  Every thought is public,
  Every nook is wide;
  Thy gossips spread each whisper,
  And the gods from side to side.
  
  ORATOR.
  
  He who has no hands
  Perforce must use his tongue;
  Foxes are so cunning
  Because they are not strong.
  
  ARTIST.
  
  Quit the hut, frequent the palace,
  Reck not what the people say;
  For still, where'er the trees grow biggest,
  Huntsmen find the easiest way.
  
  POET.
  
  Ever the Poet from the land
  Steers his bark, and trims his sail;
  Right out to sea his courses stand,
  New worlds to find in pinnace frail.
  
  POET.
  
  To clothe the fiery thought
  In simple words succeeds,
  For still the craft of genius is
  To mask a king in weeds.
  
  BOTANIST.
  
  Go thou to thy learned task,
  I stay with the flowers of spring:
  Do thou of the ages ask
  What me the flowers will bring.
  
  GARDENER.
  
  True Bramin, in the morning meadows wet,
  Expound the Vedas of the violet,
  Or, hid in vines, peeping through many a loop,
  See the plum redden, and the beurre stoop.
  
  FORESTER.
  
  He took the colour of his vest
  From rabbit's coat or grouse's breast;
  For, as the wood-kinds lurk and hide,
  So walks the woodman, unespied.
  
  NORTHMAN.
  
  The gale that wrecked you on the sand,
  It helped my rowers to row;
  The storm is my best galley hand,
  And drives me where I go.
  
  FROM ALCUIN.
  
  The sea is the road of the bold,
  Frontier of the wheat-sown plains,
  The pit wherein the streams are rolled,
  And fountain of the rains.
  
  EXCELSIOR.
  
  Over his head were the maple buds,
  And over the tree was the moon,
  And over the moon were the starry studs,
  That drop from the angel's shoon.
  
  BORROWING.
  
  FROM THE FRENCH.
  
  Some of your hurts you have cured,
  And the sharpest you still have survived,
  But what torments of grief you endured
  From evils which never arrived!
  NATURE.
  
  Boon Nature yields each day a brag which we now first behold,
  And trains us on to slight the new, as if it were the old:
  But blest is he, who, playing deep, yet haply asks not why,
  Too busied with the crowded hour to fear to live or die.
  
  FATE.
  
  Her planted eye to-day controls,
  Is in the morrow most at home,
  And sternly calls to being souls
  That curse her when they come.
  
  HOROSCOPE.
  
  Ere he was born, the stars of fate
  Plotted to make him rich and great:
  When from the womb the babe was loosed,
  The gate of gifts behind him closed.
  
  POWER.
  
  Cast the bantling on the rocks,
  Suckle him with the she-wolf's teat,
  Wintered with the hawk and fox,
  Power and speed be hands and feet.
  
  CLIMACTERIC.
  
  I am not wiser for my age,
  Nor skilful by my grief;
  Life loiters at the book's first page,--
  Ah! could we turn the leaf.
  
  HERI, CRAS, HODIE.
  
  Shines the last age, the next with hope is seen,
  To-day slinks poorly off unmarked between:
  Future or Past no richer secret folds,
  O friendless Present! than thy bosom holds.
  
  MEMORY.
  
  Night-dreams trace on Memory's wall
  Shadows of the thoughts of day,
  And thy fortunes, as they fall,
  The bias of the will betray.
  
  LOVE.
  
  Love on his errand bound to go
  Can swim the flood, and wade through snow,
  Where way is none, 'twill creep and wind
  And eat through Alps its home to find.
  
  SACRIFICE.
  
  Though love repine, and reason chafe,
  There came a voice without reply,--
  ''Tis man's perdition to be safe,
  When for the truth he ought to die.
  
  '
  PERICLES.
  
  Well and wisely said the Greek,
  Be thou faithful, but not fond;
  To the altar's foot thy fellow seek,
  The Furies wait beyond.
  
  CASELLA.
  
  Test of the poet is knowledge of love,
  For Eros is older than Saturn or Jove;
  Never was poet, of late or of yore,
  Who was not tremulous with love-lore.
  
  SHAKSPEARE.
  
  I see all human wits
  Are measured but a few,
  Unmeasured still my Shakspeare sits,
  Lone as the blessed Jew.
  
  HAFIZ.
  
  Her passions the shy violet
  From Hafiz never hides;
  Love-longings of the raptured bird
  The bird to him confides.
  
  NATURE IN LEASTS.
  
  As sings the pine-tree in the wind,
  So sings in the wind a sprig of the pine;
  Her strength and soul has laughing France
  Shed in each drop of wine.
  
  [GREEK TITLE].
  
  'A new commandment,' said the smiling Muse,
  'I give my darling son, Thou shalt not preach;'--
  Luther, Fox, Behmen, Swedenborg, grew pale,
  And, on the instant, rosier clouds upbore
  Hafiz and Shakspeare with their shining choirs.

• Rubies Read Poem Log in to favourite

  They brought me rubies from the mine,
  And held them to the sun;
  I said, they are drops of frozen wine
  From Eden's vats that run.
  
  I looked again,—I thought them hearts
  Of friends to friends unknown;
  Tides that should warm each neighboring life
  Are locked in sparkling stone.
  
  But fire to thaw that ruddy snow,
  To break enchanted ice,
  And give love's scarlet tides to flow,—
  When shall that sun arise?

• Saadi Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Trees in groves,
  Kine in droves,
  In ocean sport the scaly herds,
  Wedge-like cleave the air the birds,
  To northern lakes fly wind-borne ducks,
  Browse the mountain sheep in flocks,
  Men consort in camp and town,
  But the poet dwells alone.
  
  God who gave to him the lyre,
  Of all mortals the desire,
  For all breathing men's behoof,
  Straitly charged him, "Sit aloof;"
  Annexed a warning, poets say,
  To the bright premium,—
  Ever when twain together play,
  Shall the harp be dumb.
  
  Many may come,
  But one shall sing;
  Two touch the string,
  The harp is dumb.
  
  Though there come a million
  Wise Saadi dwells alone.
  
  Yet Saadi loved the race of men,—
  No churl immured in cave or den,—
  In bower and hall
  He wants them all,
  Nor can dispense
  With Persia for his audience;
  They must give ear,
  Grow red with joy, and white with fear,
  Yet he has no companion,
  Come ten, or come a million,
  Good Saadi dwells alone.
  
  Be thou ware where Saadi dwells.
  
  Gladly round that golden lamp
  Sylvan deities encamp,
  And simple maids and noble youth
  Are welcome to the man of truth.
  
  Most welcome they who need him most,
  They feed the spring which they exhaust:
  For greater need
  Draws better deed:
  But, critic, spare thy vanity,
  Nor show thy pompous parts,
  To vex with odious subtlety
  The cheerer of men's hearts.
  
  Sad-eyed Fakirs swiftly say
  Endless dirges to decay;
  Never in the blaze of light
  Lose the shudder of midnight;
  And at overflowing noon,
  Hear wolves barking at the moon;
  In the bower of dalliance sweet
  Hear the far Avenger's feet;
  And shake before those awful Powers
  Who in their pride forgive not ours.
  
  Thus the sad-eyed Fakirs preach;
  "Bard, when thee would Allah teach,
  And lift thee to his holy mount,
  He sends thee from his bitter fount,
  Wormwood; saying, Go thy ways,
  Drink not the Malaga of praise,
  But do the deed thy fellows hate,
  And compromise thy peaceful state.
  
  Smite the white breasts which thee fed,
  Stuff sharp thorns beneath the head
  Of them thou shouldst have comforted.
  
  For out of woe and out of crime
  Draws the heart a lore sublime.
  
  "
  And yet it seemeth not to me
  That the high gods love tragedy;
  For Saadi sat in the sun,
  And thanks was his contrition;
  For haircloth and for bloody whips,
  Had active hands and smiling lips;
  And yet his runes he rightly read,
  And to his folk his message sped.
  
  Sunshine in his heart transferred
  Lighted each transparent word;
  And well could honoring Persia learn
  What Saadi wished to say;
  For Saadi's nightly stars did burn
  Brighter than Dschami's day.
  
  Whispered the muse in Saadi's cot;
  O gentle Saadi, listen not,
  Tempted by thy praise of wit,
  Or by thirst and appetite
  For the talents not thine own,
  To sons of contradiction.
  
  Never, sun of eastern morning,
  Follow falsehood, follow scorning,
  Denounce who will, who will, deny,
  And pile the hills to scale the sky;
  Let theist, atheist, pantheist,
  Define and wrangle how they list,—
  Fierce conserver, fierce destroyer,
  But thou joy-giver and enjoyer,
  Unknowing war, unknowing crime,
  Gentle Saadi, mind thy rhyme.
  
  Heed not what the brawlers say,
  Heed thou only Saadi's lay.
  
  Let the great world bustle on
  With war and trade, with camp and town.
  
  A thousand men shall dig and eat,
  At forge and furnace thousands sweat,
  And thousands sail the purple sea,
  And give or take the stroke of war,
  Or crowd the market and bazaar.
  
  Oft shall war end, and peace return,
  And cities rise where cities burn,
  Ere one man my hill shall climb,
  Who can turn the golden rhyme;
  Let them manage how they may,
  Heed thou only Saadi's lay.
  
  Seek the living among the dead:
  Man in man is imprisoned.
  
  Barefooted Dervish is not poor,
  If fate unlock his bosom's door.
  
  So that what his eye hath seen
  His tongue can paint, as bright, as keen,
  And what his tender heart hath felt,
  With equal fire thy heart shall melt.
  
  For, whom the muses shine upon,
  And touch with soft persuasion,
  His words like a storm-wind can bring
  Terror and beauty on their wing;
  In his every syllable
  Lurketh nature veritable;
  And though he speak in midnight dark,
  In heaven, no star; on earth, no spark;
  Yet before the listener's eye
  Swims the world in ecstasy,
  The forest waves, the morning breaks,
  The pastures sleep, ripple the lakes,
  Leaves twinkle, flowers like persons be,
  And life pulsates in rock or tree.
  
  Saadi! so far thy words shall reach;
  Suns rise and set in Saadi's speech.
  
  And thus to Saadi said the muse;
  Eat thou the bread which men refuse;
  Flee from the goods which from thee flee;
  Seek nothing; Fortune seeketh thee.
  
  Nor mount, nor dive; all good things keep
  The midway of the eternal deep;
  Wish not to fill the isles with eyes
  To fetch thee birds of paradise;
  On thine orchard's edge belong
  All the brass of plume and song;
  Wise Ali's sunbright sayings pass
  For proverbs in the market-place;
  Through mountains bored by regal art
  Toil whistles as he drives his cart.
  
  Nor scour the seas, nor sift mankind,
  A poet or a friend to find;
  Behold, he watches at the door,
  Behold his shadow on the floor.
  
  Open innumerable doors,
  The heaven where unveiled Allah pours
  The flood of truth, the flood of good,
  The seraph's and the cherub's food;
  Those doors are men; the pariah kind
  Admits thee to the perfect Mind.
  
  Seek not beyond thy cottage wall
  Redeemer that can yield thee all.
  
  While thou sittest at thy door,
  On the desert's yellow floor,
  Listening to the gray-haired crones,
  Foolish gossips, ancient drones,—
  Saadi, see, they rise in stature
  To the height of mighty nature,
  And the secret stands revealed
  Fraudulent Time in vain concealed,
  That blessed gods in servile masks
  Plied for thee thy household tasks.

• Seashore Read Poem Log in to favourite

  I heard or seemed to hear the chiding Sea
  Say, Pilgrim, why so late and slow to come?
  
  Am I not always here, thy summer home?
  
  Is not my voice thy music, morn and eve?
  
  My breath thy healthful climate in the heats,
  My touch thy antidote, my bay thy bath?
  
  Was ever building like my terraces?
  
  Was ever couch magnificent as mine?
  
  Lie on the warm rock-ledges, and there learn
  A little hut suffices like a town.
  
  I make your sculptured architecture vain,
  Vain beside mine.
  
  I drive my wedges home,
  And carve the coastwise mountain into caves.
  
  Lo! here is Rome and Nineveh and Thebes,
  Karnak and Pyramid and Giant's Stairs
  Half piled or prostrate; and my newest slab
  Older than all thy race.
  
  Behold the Sea,
  The opaline, the plentiful and strong,
  Yet beautiful as is the rose in June,
  Fresh as the trickling rainbow of July;
  Sea full of food, the nourisher of kinds,
  Purger of earth, and medicine of men;
  Creating a sweet climate by my breath,
  Washing out harms and griefs from memory,
  And, in my mathematic ebb and flow,
  Giving a hint of that which changes not.
  
  Rich are the sea-gods:—who gives gifts but they?
  
  They grope the sea for pearls, but more than pearls:
  They pluck Force thence, and give it to the wise.
  
  For every wave is wealth to Dædalus,
  Wealth to the cunning artist who can work
  This matchless strength.
  
  Where shall he find, O waves!
  A load your Atlas shoulders cannot lift?
  
  I with my hammer pounding evermore
  The rocky coast, smite Andes into dust,
  Strewing my bed, and, in another age,
  Rebuild a continent of better men.
  
  Then I unbar the doors: my paths lead out
  The exodus of nations: I dispersed
  Men to all shores that front the hoary main.
  
  I too have arts and sorceries;
  Illusion dwells forever with the wave.
  
  I know what spells are laid.
  
  Leave me to deal
  With credulous and imaginative man;
  For, though he scoop my water in his palm,
  A few rods off he deems it gems and clouds.
  
  Planting strange fruits and sunshine on the shore,
  I make some coast alluring, some lone isle,
  To distant men, who must go there, or die.

• Self Reliance Read Poem Log in to favourite

  HENCEFORTH, please God, forever I forego
  The yoke of men's opinions.
  
  I will be
  Light-hearted as a bird, and live with God.
  
  I find him in the bottom of my heart,
  I hear continually his voice therein.
  
  horizontal dotted line
  The little needle always knows the North,
  The little bird remembereth his note,
  And this wise Seer within me never errs.
  
  I never taught it what it teaches me;
  I only follow, when I act aright.

• Solution Read Poem Log in to favourite

  I am the Muse who sung alway
  By Jove, at dawn of the first day.
  
  Star-crowned, sole-sitting, long I wrought
  To fire the stagnant earth with thought:
  On spawning slime my song prevails,
  Wolves shed their fangs, and dragons scales;
  Flushed in the sky the sweet May-morn,
  Earth smiled with flowers, and man was born.
  
  Then Asia yeaned her shepherd race,
  And Nile substructs her granite base,--
  Tented Tartary, columned Nile,--
  And, under vines, on rocky isle,
  Or on wind-blown sea-marge bleak,
  Forward stepped the perfect Greek:
  That wit and joy might find a tongue,
  And earth grow civil, HOMER Sung.
  
  Flown to Italy from Greece,
  I brooded long, and held my peace,
  For I am wont to sing uncalled,
  And in days of evil plight
  Unlock doors of new delight;
  And sometimes mankind I appalled
  With a bitter horoscope,
  With spasms of terror for balm of hope.
  
  Then by better thought I lead
  Bards to speak what nations need;
  So I folded me in fears,
  And DANTE searched the triple spheres,
  Moulding nature at his will,
  So shaped, so coloured, swift or still,
  And, sculptor-like, his large design
  Etched on Alp and Apennine.
  
  Seethed in mists of Penmanmaur,
  Taught by Plinlimmon's Druid power,
  England's genius filled all measure
  Of heart and soul, of strength and pleasure,
  Gave to the mind its emperor,
  And life was larger than before:
  Nor sequent centuries could hit
  Orbit and sum of SHAKSPEARE's wit.
  
  The men who lived with him became
  Poets, for the air was fame.
  
  Far in the North, where polar night
  Holds in check the frolic light,
  In trance upborne past mortal goal
  The Swede EMANUEL leads the soul.
  
  Through snows above, mines underground,
  The inks of Erebus he found;
  Rehearsed to men the damned wails
  On which the seraph music sails,
  In spirit-worlds he trod alone,
  But walked the earth unmarked, unknown.
  
  The near by-stander caught no sound,--
  Yet they who listened far aloof
  Heard rendings of the skyey roof,
  And felt, beneath, the quaking ground;
  And his air-sown, unheeded words,
  In the next age, are flaming swords.
  
  In newer days of war and trade,
  Romance forgot, and faith decayed,
  When Science armed and guided war,
  And clerks the Janus-gates unbar,
  When France, where poet never grew,
  Halved and dealt the globe anew,
  GOETHE, raised o'er joy and strife,
  Drew the firm lines of Fate and Life,
  And brought Olympian wisdom down
  To court and mart, to gown and town,
  Stooping, his finger wrote in clay
  The open secret of to-day.
  
  So bloom the unfading petals five,
  And verses that all verse outlive.

• Song of Nature Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Mine are the night and morning,
  The pits of air, the gulf of space,
  The sportive sun, the gibbous moon,
  The innumerable days.
  
  I hid in the solar glory,
  I am dumb in the pealing song,
  I rest on the pitch of the torrent,
  In slumber I am strong.
  
  No numbers have counted my tallies,
  No tribes my house can fill,
  I sit by the shining Fount of Life,
  And pour the deluge still;
  And ever by delicate powers
  Gathering along the centuries
  From race on race the rarest flowers,
  My wreath shall nothing miss.
  
  And many a thousand summers
  My apples ripened well,
  And light from meliorating stars
  With firmer glory fell.
  
  I wrote the past in characters
  Of rock and fire the scroll,
  The building in the coral sea,
  The planting of the coal.
  
  And thefts from satellites and rings
  And broken stars I drew,
  And out of spent and aged things
  I formed the world anew;
  What time the gods kept carnival,
  Tricked out in star and flower,
  And in cramp elf and saurian forms
  They swathed their too much power.
  
  Time and Thought were my surveyors,
  They laid their courses well,
  They boiled the sea, and baked the layers
  Or granite, marl, and shell.
  
  But he, the man-child glorious,—
  Where tarries he the while?
  
  The rainbow shines his harbinger,
  The sunset gleams his smile.
  
  My boreal lights leap upward,
  Forthright my planets roll,
  And still the man-child is not born,
  The summit of the whole.
  
  Must time and tide forever run?
  
  Will never my winds go sleep in the west?
  
  Will never my wheels which whirl the sun
  And satellites have rest?
  
  Too much of donning and doffing,
  Too slow the rainbow fades,
  I weary of my robe of snow,
  My leaves and my cascades;
  I tire of globes and races,
  Too long the game is played;
  What without him is summer's pomp,
  Or winter's frozen shade?
  
  I travail in pain for him,
  My creatures travail and wait;
  His couriers come by squadrons,
  He comes not to the gate.
  
  Twice I have moulded an image,
  And thrice outstretched my hand,
  Made one of day, and one of night,
  And one of the salt sea-sand.
  
  One in a Judaean manger,
  And one by Avon stream,
  One over against the mouths of Nile,
  And one in the Academe.
  
  I moulded kings and saviours,
  And bards o'er kings to rule;—
  But fell the starry influence short,
  The cup was never full.
  
  Yet whirl the glowing wheels once more,
  And mix the bowl again;
  Seethe, fate! the ancient elements,
  Heat, cold, wet, dry, and peace, and pain.
  
  Let war and trade and creeds and song
  Blend, ripen race on race,
  The sunburnt world a man shall breed
  Of all the zones, and countless days.
  
  No ray is dimmed, no atom worn,
  My oldest force is good as new,
  And the fresh rose on yonder thorn
  Gives back the bending heavens in dew.

• Spiritual Laws Read Poem Log in to favourite

  The living Heaven thy prayers respect,
  House at once and architect,
  Quarrying man's rejected hours,
  Builds therewith eternal towers;
  Sole and self-commanded works,
  Fears not undermining days,
  Grows by decays,
  And, by the famous might that lurks
  In reaction and recoil,
  Makes flame to freeze and ice to boil;
  Forging, through swart arms of Offence,
  The silver seat of Innocence.

• Sursum Corda Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Seek not the Spirit, if it hide,
  Inexorable to thy zeal:
  Baby, do not whine and chide;
  Art thou not also real?
  
  Why should'st thou stoop to poor excuse?
  
  Turn on the Accuser roundly; say,
  "Here am I, here will I remain
  Forever to myself soothfast,
  Go thou, sweet Heaven, or, at thy pleasure stay.
  
  "—
  Already Heaven with thee its lot has cast,
  For it only can absolutely deal.

• Suum Cuique Read Poem Log in to favourite

  The rain has spoiled the farmer's day;
  Shall sorrow put my books away?
  
  Thereby are two days lost:
  Nature shall mind her own affairs,
  I will attend my proper cares,
  In rain, or sun, or frost.

• Tact Read Poem Log in to favourite

  What boots it, thy virtue,
  What profit thy parts,
  While one thing thou lackest,
  The art of all arts!
  The only credentials,
  Passport to success,
  Opens castle and parlor,—
  Address, man, Address.
  
  The maiden in danger
  Was saved by the swain,
  His stout arm restored her
  To Broadway again:
  The maid would reward him,—
  Gay company come,—
  They laugh, she laughs with them,
  He is moonstruck and dumb.
  
  This clenches the bargain,
  Sails out of the bay,
  Gets the vote in the Senate,
  Spite of Webster and Clay;
  Has for genius no mercy,
  For speeches no heed,—
  It lurks in the eyebeam,
  It leaps to its deed.
  
  Church, tavern, and market,
  Bed and board it will sway;
  It has no to-morrow,
  It ends with to-day.

• Teach Me I Am Forgotten By The Dead Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Teach me I am forgotten by the dead
  And that the dead is by herself forgot
  And I no longer would keep terms with me.
  
  I would not murder, steal, or fornicate,
  Nor with ambition break the peace of towns
  But I would bury my ambition
  The hope & action of my sovereign soul
  In miserable ruin.
  
  Nor a hope
  Should ever make a holiday for me
  I would not be the fool of accident
  I would not have a project seek an end
  That needed aught
  Beyond the handful of my present means
  The sun of Duty drop from his firmament
  To be a rushlight for each petty end
  I would not harm my fellow men
  On this low argument, 'twould harm myself.

• Terminus Read Poem Log in to favourite

  It is time to be old,
  To take in sail:—
  The god of bounds,
  Who sets to seas a shore,
  Came to me in his fatal rounds,
  And said: “No more!
  No farther shoot
  Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root.
  
  Fancy departs: no more invent;
  Contract thy firmament
  To compass of a tent.
  
  There’s not enough for this and that,
  Make thy option which of two;
  Economize the failing river,
  Not the less revere the Giver,
  Leave the many and hold the few.
  
  Timely wise accept the terms,
  Soften the fall with wary foot;
  A little while
  Still plan and smile,
  And,—fault of novel germs,—
  Mature the unfallen fruit.
  
  Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires,
  Bad husbands of their fires,
  Who, when they gave thee breath,
  Failed to bequeath
  The needful sinew stark as once,
  The Baresark marrow to thy bones,
  But left a legacy of ebbing veins,
  Inconstant heat and nerveless reins,—
  Amid the Muses, left thee deaf and dumb,
  Amid the gladiators, halt and numb.
  
  ”
  
  As the bird trims her to the gale,
  I trim myself to the storm of time,
  I man the rudder, reef the sail,
  Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime:
  “Lowly faithful, banish fear,
  Right onward drive unharmed;
  The port, well worth the cruise, is near,
  And every wave is charmed.
  
  ”

• The Adirondacs Read Poem Log in to favourite

  A JOURNAL.
  
  DEDICATED TO MY FELLOW-TRAVELLERS IN AUGUST, 1858.
  
  Wise and polite,--and if I drew
  Their several portraits, you would own
  Chaucer had no such worthy crew,
  Nor Boccace in Decameron.
  
  We crossed Champlain to Keeseville with our friends,
  Thence, in strong country carts, rode up the forks
  Of the Ausable stream, intent to reach
  The Adirondac lakes.
  
  At Martin's Beach
  We chose our boats; each man a boat and guide,--
  Ten men, ten guides, our company all told.
  
  Next morn, we swept with oars the Saranac,
  With skies of benediction, to Round Lake,
  Where all the sacred mountains drew around us,
  Tahawus, Seaward, MacIntyre, Baldhead,
  And other Titans without muse or name.
  
  Pleased with these grand companions, we glide on,
  Instead of flowers, crowned with a wreath of hills,
  And made our distance wider, boat from boat,
  As each would hear the oracle alone.
  
  By the bright morn the gay flotilla slid
  Through files of flags that gleamed like bayonets,
  Through gold-moth-haunted beds of pickerel-flower,
  Through scented banks of lilies white and gold,
  Where the deer feeds at night, the teal by day,
  On through the Upper Saranac, and up
  Pere Raquette stream, to a small tortuous pass
  Winding through grassy shallows in and out,
  Two creeping miles of rushes, pads, and sponge,
  To Follansbee Water, and the Lake of Loons.
  
  Northward the length of Follansbee we rowed,
  Under low mountains, whose unbroken ridge
  Ponderous with beechen forest sloped the shore.
  
  A pause and council: then, where near the head
  On the east a bay makes inward to the land
  Between two rocky arms, we climb the bank,
  And in the twilight of the forest noon
  Wield the first axe these echoes ever heard.
  
  We cut young trees to make our poles and thwarts,
  Barked the white spruce to weatherfend the roof,
  Then struck a light, and kindled the camp-fire.
  
  The wood was sovran with centennial trees,--
  Oak, cedar, maple, poplar, beech and fir,
  Linden and spruce.
  
  In strict society
  Three conifers, white, pitch, and Norway pine,
  Five-leaved, three-leaved, and two-leaved, grew thereby.
  
  Our patron pine was fifteen feet in girth,
  The maple eight, beneath its shapely tower.
  
  'Welcome!' the wood god murmured through the leaves,--
  'Welcome, though late, unknowing, yet known to me.
  
  '
  Evening drew on; stars peeped through maple-boughs,
  Which o'erhung, like a cloud, our camping fire.
  
  Decayed millennial trunks, like moonlight flecks,
  Lit with phosphoric crumbs the forest floor.
  
  Ten scholars, wonted to lie warm and soft
  In well-hung chambers daintily bestowed,
  Lie here on hemlock-boughs, like Sacs and Sioux,
  And greet unanimous the joyful change.
  
  So fast will Nature acclimate her sons,
  Though late returning to her pristine ways.
  
  Off soundings, seamen do not suffer cold;
  And, in the forest, delicate clerks, unbrowned,
  Sleep on the fragrant brush, as on down-beds.
  
  Up with the dawn, they fancied the light air
  That circled freshly in their forest dress
  Made them to boys again.
  
  Happier that they
  Slipped off their pack of duties, leagues behind,
  At the first mounting of the giant stairs.
  
  No placard on these rocks warned to the polls,
  No door-bell heralded a visitor,
  No courier waits, no letter came or went,
  Nothing was ploughed, or reaped, or bought, or sold;
  The frost might glitter, it would blight no crop,
  The falling rain will spoil no holiday.
  
  We were made freemen of the forest laws,
  All dressed, like Nature, fit for her own ends,
  Essaying nothing she cannot perform.
  
  In Adirondac lakes,
  At morn or noon, the guide rows bareheaded:
  Shoes, flannel shirt, and kersey trousers make
  His brief toilette: at night, or in the rain,
  He dons a surcoat which he doffs at morn:
  A paddle in the right hand, or an oar,
  And in the left, a gun, his needful arms.
  
  By turns we praised the stature of our guides,
  Their rival strength and suppleness, their skill
  To row, to swim, to shoot, to build a camp,
  To climb a lofty stem, clean without boughs
  Full fifty feet, and bring the eaglet down:
  Temper to face wolf, bear, or catamount,
  And wit to track or take him in his lair.
  
  Sound, ruddy men, frolic and innocent,
  In winter, lumberers; in summer, guides;
  Their sinewy arms pull at the oar untired
  Three times ten thousand strokes, from morn to eve.
  
  Look to yourselves, ye polished gentlemen!
  No city airs or arts pass current here.
  
  Your rank is all reversed: let men of cloth
  Bow to the stalwart churls in overalls:
  They are the doctors of the wilderness,
  And we the low-prized laymen.
  
  In sooth, red flannel is a saucy test
  Which few can put on with impunity.
  
  What make you, master, fumbling at the oar?
  
  Will you catch crabs?
  
  Truth tries pretension here.
  
  The sallow knows the basket-maker's thumb;
  The oar, the guide's.
  
  Dare you accept the tasks
  He shall impose, to find a spring, trap foxes,
  Tell the sun's time, determine the true north,
  Or stumbling on through vast self-similar woods
  To thread by night the nearest way to camp?
  
  Ask you, how went the hours?
  
  All day we swept the lake, searched every cove,
  North from Camp Maple, south to Osprey Bay,
  Watching when the loud dogs should drive in deer,
  Or whipping its rough surface for a trout;
  Or bathers, diving from the rock at noon;
  Challenging Echo by our guns and cries;
  Or listening to the laughter of the loon;
  Or, in the evening twilight's latest red,
  Beholding the procession of the pines;
  Or, later yet, beneath a lighted jack,
  In the boat's bows, a silent night-hunter
  Stealing with paddle to the feeding-grounds
  Of the red deer, to aim at a square mist.
  
  Hark to that muffled roar! a tree in the woods
  Is fallen: but hush! it has not scared the buck
  Who stands astonished at the meteor light,
  Then turns to bound away,--is it too late?
  
  Sometimes we tried our rifles at a mark,
  Six rods, sixteen, twenty, or forty-five;
  Sometimes our wits at sally and retort,
  With laughter sudden as the crack of rifle;
  Or parties scaled the near acclivities
  Competing seekers of a rumoured lake,
  Whose unauthenticated waves we named
  Lake Probability,--our carbuncle,
  Long sought, not found.
  
  Two Doctors in the camp
  Dissected the slain deer, weighed the trout's brain,
  Captured the lizard, salamander, shrew,
  Crab, mice, snail, dragon-fly, minnow, and moth;
  Insatiate skill in water or in air
  Waved the scoop-net, and nothing came amiss;
  The while, one leaden pot of alcohol
  Gave an impartial tomb to all the kinds.
  
  Not less the ambitious botanist sought plants,
  Orchis and gentian, fern, and long whip-scirpus,
  Rosy polygonum, lake-margin's pride,
  Hypnum and hydnum, mushroom, sponge, and moss,
  Or harebell nodding in the gorge of falls.
  
  Above, the eagle flew, the osprey screamed,
  The raven croaked, owls hooted, the woodpecker
  Loud hammered, and the heron rose in the swamp.
  
  As water poured through the hollows of the hills
  To feed this wealth of lakes and rivulets,
  So Nature shed all beauty lavishly
  From her redundant horn.
  
  Lords of this realm,
  Bounded by dawn and sunset, and the day
  Rounded by hours where each outdid the last
  In miracles of pomp, we must be proud,
  As if associates of the sylvan gods.
  
  We seemed the dwellers of the zodiac,
  So pure the Alpine element we breathed,
  So light, so lofty pictures came and went.
  
  We trode on air, contemned the distant town,
  Its timorous ways, big trifles, and we planned
  That we should build, hard-by, a spacious lodge,
  And how we should come hither with our sons,
  Hereafter,--willing they, and more adroit.
  
  Hard fare, hard bed, and comic misery,--
  The midge, the blue-fly, and the mosquito
  Painted our necks, hands, ankles, with red bands:
  But, on the second day, we heed them not,
  Nay, we saluted them Auxiliaries,
  Whom earlier we had chid with spiteful names.
  
  For who defends our leafy tabernacle
  From bold intrusion of the travelling crowd,--
  Who but the midge, mosquito, and the fly,
  Which past endurance sting the tender cit,
  But which we learn to scatter with a smudge,
  Or baffle by a veil, or slight by scorn?
  
  Our foaming ale we drunk from hunters' pans,
  Ale, and a sup of wine.
  
  Our steward gave
  Venison and trout, potatoes, beans, wheat-bread;
  All ate like abbots, and, if any missed
  Their wonted convenance, cheerly hid the loss
  With hunters' appetite and peals of mirth.
  
  And Stillman, our guides' guide, and Commodore,
  Crusoe, Crusader, Pius AEneas, said aloud,
  "Chronic dyspepsia never came from eating
  Food indigestible":--then murmured some,
  Others applauded him who spoke the truth.
  
  Nor doubt but visitings of graver thought
  Checked in these souls the turbulent heyday
  'Mid all the hints and glories of the home.
  
  For who can tell what sudden privacies
  Were sought and found, amid the hue and cry
  Of scholars furloughed from their tasks, and let
  Into this Oreads' fended Paradise,
  As chapels in the city's thoroughfares,
  Whither gaunt Labour slips to wipe his brow,
  And meditate a moment on Heaven's rest.
  
  Judge with what sweet surprises Nature spoke
  To each apart, lifting her lovely shows
  To spiritual lessons pointed home.
  
  And as through dreams in watches of the night,
  So through all creatures in their form and ways
  Some mystic hint accosts the vigilant,
  Not clearly voiced, but waking a new sense
  Inviting to new knowledge, one with old.
  
  Hark to that petulant chirp! what ails the warbler?
  
  Mark his capricious ways to draw the eye.
  
  Now soar again.
  
  What wilt thou, restless bird,
  Seeking in that chaste blue a bluer light,
  Thirsting in that pure for a purer sky?
  
  And presently the sky is changed; O world!
  What pictures and what harmonies are thine!
  The clouds are rich and dark, the air serene,
  So like the soul of me, what if't were me?
  
  A melancholy better than all mirth.
  
  Comes the sweet sadness at the retrospect,
  Or at the foresight of obscurer years?
  
  Like yon slow-sailing cloudy promontory,
  Whereon the purple iris dwells in beauty
  Superior to all its gaudy skirts.
  
  And, that no day of life may lack romance,
  The spiritual stars rise nightly, shedding down
  A private beam into each several heart.
  
  Daily the bending skies solicit man,
  The seasons chariot him from this exile,
  The rainbow hours bedeck his glowing chair,
  The storm-winds urge the heavy weeks along,
  Suns haste to set, that so remoter lights
  Beckon the wanderer to his vaster home.
  
  With a vermilion pencil mark the day
  When of our little fleet three cruising skiffs
  Entering Big Tupper, bound for the foaming Falls
  Of loud Bog River, suddenly confront
  Two of our mates returning with swift oars.
  
  One held a printed journal waving high
  Caught from a late-arriving traveller,
  Big with great news, and shouted the report
  For which the world had waited, now firm fact,
  Of the wire-cable laid beneath the sea,
  And landed on our coast, and pulsating
  With ductile fire.
  
  Loud, exulting cries
  From boat to boat, and to the echoes round,
  Greet the glad miracle.
  
  Thought's new-found path
  Shall supplement henceforth all trodden ways,
  Match God's equator with a zone of art,
  And lift man's public action to a height
  Worthy the enormous clouds of witnesses,
  When linked hemispheres attest his deed.
  
  We have few moments in the longest life
  Of such delight and wonder as there grew,--
  Nor yet unsuited to that solitude:
  A burst of joy, as if we told the fact
  To ears intelligent; as if gray rock
  And cedar grove and cliff and lake should know
  This feat of wit, this triumph of mankind;
  As if we men were talking in a vein
  Of sympathy so large, that ours was theirs,
  And a prime end of the most subtle element
  Were fairly reached at last.
  
  Wake, echoing caves!
  Bend nearer, faint day-moon! Yon thundertops,
  Let them hear well! 't is theirs as much as ours.
  
  A spasm throbbing through the pedestals
  Of Alp and Andes, isle and continent,
  Urging astonished Chaos with a thrill
  To be a brain, or serve the brain of man.
  
  The lightning has run masterless too long;
  He must to school, and learn his verb and noun,
  And teach his nimbleness to earn his wage,
  Spelling with guided tongue man's messages
  Shot through the weltering pit of the salt sea.
  
  And yet I marked, even in the manly joy
  Of our great-hearted Doctor in his boat,
  (Perchance I erred,) a shade of discontent;
  Or was it for mankind a generous shame,
  As of a luck not quite legitimate,
  Since fortune snatched from wit the lion's part?
  
  Was it a college pique of town and gown,
  As one within whose memory it burned
  That not academicians, but some lout,
  Found ten years since the Californian gold?
  
  And now, again, a hungry company
  Of traders, led by corporate sons of trade,
  Perversely borrowing from the shop the tools
  Of science, not from the philosophers,
  Had won the brightest laurel of all time.
  
  'Twas always thus, and will be; hand and head
  Are ever rivals: but, though this be swift,
  The other slow,--this the Prometheus,
  And that the Jove,--yet, howsoever hid,
  It was from Jove the other stole his fire,
  And, without Jove, the good had never been.
  
  It is not Iroquois or cannibals,
  But ever the free race with front sublime,
  And these instructed by their wisest too,
  Who do the feat, and lift humanity.
  
  Let not him mourn who best entitled was,
  Nay, mourn not one: let him exult,
  Yea, plant the tree that bears best apples, plant,
  And water it with wine, nor watch askance
  Whether thy sons or strangers eat the fruit:
  Enough that mankind eat, and are refreshed.
  
  We flee away from cities, but we bring
  The best of cities with us, these learned classifiers,
  Men knowing what they seek, armed eyes of experts.
  
  We praise the guide, we praise the forest life;
  But will we sacrifice our dear-bought lore
  Of books and arts and trained experiment,
  Or count the Sioux a match for Agassiz?
  
  O no, not we! Witness the shout that shook
  Wild Tupper Lake; witness the mute all-hail
  The joyful traveller gives, when on the verge
  Of craggy Indian wilderness he hears
  From a log-cabin stream Beethoven's notes
  On the piano, played with master's hand.
  
  'Well done!' he cries; 'the bear is kept at bay,
  The lynx, the rattlesnake, the flood, the fire;
  All the fierce enemies, ague, hunger, cold,
  This thin spruce roof, this clayed log-wall,
  This wild plantation will suffice to chase.
  
  Now speed the gay celerities of art,
  What in the desert was impossible
  Within four walls is possible again,--
  Culture and libraries, mysteries of skill,
  Traditioned fame of masters, eager strife
  Of keen competing youths, joined or alone
  To outdo each other, and extort applause.
  
  Mind wakes a new-born giant from her sleep.
  
  Twirl the old wheels?
  
  Time takes fresh start again
  On for a thousand years of genius more.
  
  '
  The holidays were fruitful, but must end;
  One August evening had a cooler breath;
  Into each mind intruding duties crept;
  Under the cinders burned the fires of home;
  Nay, letters found us in our paradise;
  So in the gladness of the new event
  We struck our camp, and left the happy hills.
  
  The fortunate star that rose on us sank not;
  The prodigal sunshine rested on the land,
  The rivers gambolled onward to the sea,
  And Nature, the inscrutable and mute,
  Permitted on her infinite repose
  Almost a smile to steal to cheer her sons,
  As if one riddle of the Sphinx were guessed.

• The Amulet Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Your picture smiles as first it smiled,
  The ring you gave is still the same,
  Your letter tells, O changing child,
  No tidings since it came.
  
  Give me an amulet
  That keeps intelligence with you,
  Red when you love, and rosier red,
  And when you love not, pale and blue.
  
  Alas, that neither bonds nor vows
  Can certify possession;
  Torments me still the fear that love
  Died in its last expression.

• The Apology Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Think me not unkind and rude
  That I walk alone in grove and glen;
  I go to the god of the wood
  To fetch his word to men.
  
  Tax not my sloth that I
  Fold my arms beside the brook;
  Each cloud that floated in the sky
  Writes a letter in my book.
  
  Chide me not, laborious band,
  For the idle flowers I brought;
  Every aster in my hand
  Goes home loaded with a thought.
  
  There was never mystery
  But 'tis figured in the flowers;
  Was never secret history
  But birds tell it in the bowers.
  
  One harvest from thy field
  Homeward brought the oxen strong;
  A second crop thine acres yield,
  Which I gather in a song.

• The Bell Read Poem Log in to favourite

  I love thy music, mellow bell,
  I love thine iron chime,
  To life or death, to heaven or hell,
  Which calls the sons of Time.
  
  Thy voice upon the deep
  The home-bound sea-boy hails,
  It charms his cares to sleep,
  It cheers him as he sails.
  
  To house of God and heavenly joys
  Thy summons called our sires,
  And good men thought thy sacred voice
  Disarmed the thunder's fires.
  
  And soon thy music, sad death-bell,
  Shall lift its notes once more,
  And mix my requiem with the wind
  That sweeps my native shore.

• The Chartist's Complaint Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Day! hast thou two faces,
  Making one place two places?
  
  One, by humble farmer seen,
  Chill and wet, unlighted, mean,
  Useful only, triste and damp,
  Serving for a laborer's lamp?
  
  Have the same mists another side,
  To be the appanage of pride,
  Gracing the rich man's wood and lake,
  His park where amber mornings break,
  And treacherously bright to show
  His planted isle where roses glow?
  
  O Day! and is your mightiness
  A sycophant to smug success?
  
  Will the sweet sky and ocean broad
  Be fine accomplices to fraud?
  
  O sun! I curse thy cruel ray!
  Back, back to chaos, harlot Day!

• The Cumberland Read Poem Log in to favourite

  At anchor in Hampton Roads we lay,
  On board of the Cumberland, sloop-of-war;
  And at times from the fortress across the bay
  The alarum of drums swept past,
  Or a bugle blast
  From the camp on the shore.
  
  Then far away to the south uprose
  A little feather of snow-white smoke,
  And we knew that the iron ship of our foes
  Was steadily steering its course
  To try the force
  Of our ribs of oak.
  
  Down upon us heavily runs,
  Silent and sullen, the floating fort;
  Then comes a puff of smoke from her guns,
  And leaps the terrible death,
  With fiery breath,
  From each open port.
  
  We are not idle, but send her straight
  Defiance back in a full broadside!
  As hail rebounds from a roof of slate,
  Rebounds our heavier hail
  From each iron scale
  Of the monster's hide.
  
  "Strike your flag!" the rebel cries,
  In his arrogant old plantation strain.
  
  "Never!" our gallant Morris replies;
  "It is better to sink than to yield!"
  And the whole air pealed
  With the cheers of our men.
  
  Then, like a kraken huge and black,
  She crushed our ribs in her iron grasp!
  Down went the Cumberland all a wrack,
  With a sudden shudder of death,
  And the cannon's breath
  For her dying gasp.
  
  Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay,
  Still floated our flag at the mainmast head.
  
  Lord, how beautiful was Thy day!
  Every waft of the air
  Was a whisper of prayer,
  Or a dirge for the dead.
  
  Ho! brave hearts that went down in the seas!
  Ye are at peace in the troubled stream;
  Ho! brave land! with hearts like these,
  Thy flag, that is rent in twain,
  Shall be one again,
  And without a seam!

• The Day's Ration Read Poem Log in to favourite

  When I was born,
  From all the seas of strength Fate filled a chalice,
  Saying, This be thy portion, child; this chalice,
  Less than a lily's, thou shalt daily draw
  From my great arteries; nor less, nor more.
  
  All substances the cunning chemist Time
  Melts down into that liquor of my life,
  Friends, foes, joys, fortunes, beauty, and disgust,
  And whether I am angry or content,
  Indebted or insulted, loved or hurt,
  All he distils into sidereal wine,
  And brims my little cup; heedless, alas!
  Of all he sheds how little it will hold,
  How much runs over on the desert sands.
  
  If a new muse draw me with splendid ray,
  And I uplift myself into her heaven,
  The needs of the first sight absorb my blood,
  And all the following hours of the day
  Drag a ridiculous age.
  
  To-day, when friends approach, and every hour
  Brings book or starbright scroll of genius,
  The tiny cup will hold not a bead more,
  And all the costly liquor runs to waste,
  Nor gives the jealous time one diamond drop
  So to be husbanded for poorer days.
  
  Why need I volumes, if one word suffice?
  
  Why need I galleries, when a pupil's draught
  After the master's sketch, fills and o'erfills
  My apprehension?
  
  Why should I roam,
  Who cannot circumnavigate the sea
  Of thoughts and things at home, but still adjourn
  The nearest matters to another moon?
  
  Why see new men
  Who have not understood the old?

• The Earth Read Poem Log in to favourite

  OUR eyeless bark sails free,
  Though with boom and spar
  Andes, Alp, or Himmalee
  Strikes never moon or star.

• The Enchanter Read Poem Log in to favourite

  In the deep heart of man a poet dwells
  Who all the day of life his summer story tells;
  Scatters on every eye dust of his spells,
  Scent, form and color; to the flower and shells
  Wins the believing child with wondrous tales;
  Touches a cheek with colors of romance,
  And crowds a history into a glance;
  Gives beauty to the lake and fountain,
  Spies oversea the fires of the mountain;
  When thrushes ope their throat, 't is he
  that sings,
  And he that paints the oriole's fiery wings.
  
  The little Shakspeare in the maiden's heart
  Makes Romeo of a plough-boy on his cart;
  Opens the eye to Virture's starlike meed
  And gives persuasion to a gentle deed.

• The Forerunners Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Long I followed happy guides,—
  I could never reach their sides.
  
  Their step is forth, and, ere the day,
  Breaks up their leaguer, and away.
  
  Keen my sense, my heart was young,
  Right goodwill my sinews strung,
  But no speed of mine avails
  To hunt upon their shining trails.
  
  On and away, their hasting feet
  Make the morning proud and sweet.
  
  Flowers they strew, I catch the scent,
  Or tone of silver instrument
  Leaves on the wind melodious trace,
  Yet I could never see their face.
  
  On eastern hills I see their smokes
  Mixed with mist by distant lochs.
  
  I meet many travellers
  Who the road had surely kept,—
  They saw not my fine revellers,—
  These had crossed them while they slept.
  
  Some had heard their fair report
  In the country or the court.
  
  Fleetest couriers alive
  Never yet could once arrive,
  As they went or they returned,
  At the house where these sojourned.
  
  Sometimes their strong speed they slacken,
  Though they are not overtaken:
  In sleep, their jubilant troop is near,
  I tuneful voices overhear,
  It may be in wood or waste,—
  At unawares 'tis come and passed.
  
  Their near camp my spirit knows
  By signs gracious as rainbows.
  
  I thenceforward and long after
  Listen for their harplike laughter,
  And carry in my heart for days
  Peace that hallows rudest ways.

• The Gods Walk In The Breath Of The Woods Read Poem Log in to favourite

  The gods walk in the breath of the woods
  They walk by the sounding pine,
  And fill the long reach of the old seashore
  With colloquy divine
  And the poet who overhears
  Each random word they say
  Is the prophet without peers
  Whom kings & lords obey.

• The Humble Bee Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Burly dozing humblebee!
  Where thou art is clime for me.
  
  Let them sail for Porto Rique,
  Far-off heats through seas to seek,
  I will follow thee alone,
  Thou animated torrid zone!
  Zig-zag steerer, desert-cheerer,
  Let me chase thy waving lines,
  Keep me nearer, me thy hearer,
  Singing over shrubs and vines.
  
  Insect lover of the sun,
  Joy of thy dominion!
  Sailor of the atmosphere,
  Swimmer through the waves of air,
  Voyager of light and noon,
  Epicurean of June,
  Wait I prithee, till I come
  Within ear-shot of thy hum,—
  All without is martyrdom.
  
  When the south wind, in May days,
  With a net of shining haze,
  Silvers the horizon wall,
  And, with softness touching all,
  Tints the human countenance
  With a color of romance,
  And, infusing subtle heats,
  Turns the sod to violets,
  Thou in sunny solitudes,
  Rover of the underwoods,
  The green silence dost displace,
  With thy mellow breezy bass.
  
  Hot midsummer's petted crone,
  Sweet to me thy drowsy tune,
  Telling of countless sunny hours,
  Long days, and solid banks of flowers,
  Of gulfs of sweetness without bound
  In Indian wildernesses found,
  Of Syrian peace, immortal leisure,
  Firmest cheer and bird-like pleasure.
  
  Aught unsavory or unclean,
  Hath my insect never seen,
  But violets and bilberry bells,
  Maple sap and daffodels,
  Grass with green flag half-mast high,
  Succory to match the sky,
  Columbine with horn of honey,
  Scented fern, and agrimony,
  Clover, catch fly, adders-tongue,
  And brier-roses dwelt among;
  All beside was unknown waste,
  All was picture as he passed.
  
  Wiser far than human seer,
  Yellow-breeched philosopher!
  Seeing only what is fair,
  Sipping only what is sweet,
  Thou dost mock at fate and care,
  Leave the chaff and take the wheat,
  When the fierce north-western blast
  Cools sea and land so far and fast,
  Thou already slumberest deep,—
  Woe and want thou canst out-sleep,—
  Want and woe which torture us,
  Thy sleep makes ridiculous.

• The Lords of Life Read Poem Log in to favourite

  The lords of life, the lords of life,-
  I saw them pass,
  In their own guise,
  Like and unlike,
  Portly and grim,
  Use and Surprise,
  Surface and Dream,
  Succession swift, and spectral Wrong,
  Temperament without a tongue,
  And the inventor of the game
  Omnipresent without name;-
  Some to see, some to be guessed,
  They marched from east to west:
  Little man, least of all,
  Among the legs of his guardians tall,
  Walked about with puzzled look:-
  Him by the hand dear nature took;
  Dearest nature, strong and kind,
  Whispered, 'Darling, never mind!
  Tomorrow they will wear another face,
  The founder thou! these are thy race!'

• The Park Read Poem Log in to favourite

  The prosperous and beautiful
  To me seem not to wear
  The yoke of conscience masterful,
  Which galls me everywhere.
  
  I cannot shake off the god;
  On my neck he makes his seat;
  I look at my face in the glass,
  My eyes his eye-balls meet.
  
  Enchanters! enchantresses!
  Your gold makes you seem wise:
  The morning mist within your grounds
  More proudly rolls, more softly lies.
  
  Yet spake yon purple mountain,
  Yet said yon ancient wood,
  That night or day, that love or crime
  Lead all souls to the Good.

• The Past Read Poem Log in to favourite

  The debt is paid,
  The verdict said,
  The Furies laid,
  The plague is stayed,
  All fortunes made;
  Turn the key and bolt the door,
  Sweet is death forevermore.
  
  Nor haughty hope, nor swart chagrin,
  Nor murdering hate, can enter in.
  
  All is now secure and fast;
  Not the gods can shake the Past;
  Flies-to the adamantine door
  Bolted down forevermore.
  
  None can re-enter there,—
  No thief so politic,
  No Satan with a royal trick
  Steal in by window, chink, or hole,
  To bind or unbind, add what lacked,
  Insert a leaf, or forge a name,
  New-face or finish what is packed,
  Alter or mend eternal Fact.

• The Poet Read Poem Log in to favourite

  The Poet
  Ralph Waldo Emerson
  A moody child and wildly wise
  Pursued the game with joyful eyes,
  Which chose, like meteors, their way,
  And rived the dark with private ray:
  They overleapt the horizon's edge,
  Searched with Apollo's privilege;
  Through man, and woman, and sea, and star
  Saw the dance of nature forward far;
  Through worlds, and races, and terms, and times
  Saw musical order, and pairing rhymes.
  
  Olympian bards who sung
  Divine ideas below,
  Which always find us young,
  And always keep us so.
  
  Note: continue reading the essay
  here
  .

• The Problem Read Poem Log in to favourite

  I like the church; I like a cowl;
  I love a prophet of the soul;
  And on my heart monastic aisles
  Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles;
  Yet not for all his faith can see
  Would I that cowlèd churchman be.
  
  Why should the vest on him allure,
  Which I could not on me endure?
  
  Not from a vain or shallow thought
  His awful Jove young Phidias brought;
  Never from lips of cunning fell
  The thrilling Delphic oracle;
  Out from the heart of nature rolled
  The burdens of the Bible old;
  The litanies of nations came,
  Like the volcano's tongue of flame,
  Up from the burning core below,—
  The canticles of love and woe:
  The hand that rounded Peter's dome
  And groined the aisles of Christian Rome
  Wrought in a sad sincerity;
  Himself from God he could not free;
  He builded better than he knew;—
  The conscious stone to beauty grew.
  
  Knowst thou what wove yon wood bird's nest
  Of leaves and feathers from her breast?
  
  Or how the fish outbuilt her shell,
  Painting with morn each annual cell?
  
  Or how the sacred pine tree adds
  To her old leaves new myriads?
  
  Such and so grew these holy piles,
  Whilst love and terror laid the tiles.
  
  Earth proudly wears the Parthenon,
  As the best gem upon her zone,
  And Morning opes with haste her lids
  To gaze upon the Pyramids;
  O'er England's abbeys bends the sky,
  As on its friends, with kindred eye;
  For out of Thought's interior sphere
  These wonders rose to upper air;
  And Nature gladly gave them place,
  Adopted them into her race,
  And granted them an equal date
  With Andes and with Ararat.
  
  These temples grew as grows the grass;
  Art might obey, but not surpass.
  
  The passive Master lent his hand
  To the vast soul that o'er him planned;
  And the same power that reared the shrine
  Bestrode the tribes that knelt within.
  
  Ever the fiery Pentecost
  Girds with one flame the countless host,
  Trances the heart through chanting choirs,
  And through the priest the mind inspires.
  
  The word unto the prophet spoken
  Was writ on tables yet unbroken;
  The word by seers or sibyls told,
  In groves of oak, or fames of gold,
  Still floats upon the morning wind,
  Still whispters to the willing mind.
  
  One accent of the Holy Ghost
  The heedless world hath never lost.
  
  I know what say the fathers wise,—
  The Book itself before me lies,
  Old Chrysostom, best Augustine,
  And he who blent both in his line,
  The younger Golden Lips or mines,
  Taylor, the Shakespeare of divines.
  
  His words are music in my ear.
  
  I see his cowlèd portrait dear;
  And yet, for all his faith could see,
  I would not the good bishop be.

• The River Note Read Poem Log in to favourite

  And I behold once more
  My old familiar haunts; here the blue river,
  The same blue wonder that my infant eye
  Admired, sage doubting whence the traveller came,--
  Whence brought his sunny bubbles ere he washed
  The fragrant flag-roots in my father's fields,
  And where thereafter in the world he went.
  
  Look, here he is, unaltered, save that now
  He hath broke his banks and flooded all the vales
  With his redundant waves.
  
  Here is the rock where, yet a simple child,
  I caught with bended pin my earliest fish,
  Much triumphing,--and these the fields
  Over whose flowers I chased the butterfly,
  A blooming hunter of a fairy fine.
  
  And hark! where overhead the ancient crows
  Hold their sour conversation in the sky:--
  These are the same, but I am not the same,
  But wiser than I was, and wise enough
  Not to regret the changes, tho' they cost
  Me many a sigh.
  
  Oh, call not Nature dumb;
  These trees and stones are audible to me,
  These idle flowers, that tremble in the wind,
  I understand their faery syllables,
  And all their sad significance.
  
  The wind,
  That rustles down the well-known forest road--
  It hath a sound more eloquent than speech.
  
  The stream, the trees, the grass, the sighing wind,
  All of them utter sounds of 'monishment
  And grave parental love.
  
  They are not of our race, they seem to say,
  And yet have knowledge of our moral race,
  And somewhat of majestic sympathy,
  Something of pity for the puny clay,
  That holds and boasts the immeasurable mind.
  
  I feel as I were welcome to these trees
  After long months of weary wandering,
  Acknowledged by their hospitable boughs;
  They know me as their son, for side by side,
  They were coeval with my ancestors,
  Adorned with them my country's primitive times,
  And soon may give my dust their funeral shade.

• The Romany Girl Read Poem Log in to favourite

  The sun goes down, and with him takes
  The coarseness of my poor attire;
  The fair moon mounts, and aye the flame
  Of Gypsy beauty blazes higher.
  
  Pale Northern girls! you scorn our race;
  You captives of your air-tight halls,
  Wear out in-doors your sickly days,
  But leave us the horizon walls.
  
  And if I take you, dames, to task,
  And say it frankly without guile,
  Then you are Gypsies in a mask,
  And I the lady all the while.
  
  If, on the heath, below the moon,
  I court and play with paler blood,
  Me false to mine dare whisper none,—
  One sallow horseman knows me good.
  
  Go, keep your cheek's rose from the rain,
  For teeth and hair with shopmen deal;
  My swarthy tint is in the grain,
  The rocks and forest know it real.
  
  The wild air bloweth in out lungs,
  The keen stars twinkle in our eyes,
  The birds gave us our wily tongues,
  The panther in our dances flies.
  
  You doubt we read the stars on high,
  Nathless we read your fortunes true;
  The stars may hide in the upper sky,
  But without glass we fathom you.

• The Snowstorm Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
  Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
  Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
  Hides hill and woods, the river, and the heaven,
  And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
  
  The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
  Delated, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
  Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
  In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
  
  Come see the north wind's masonry.
  
  Out of an unseen quarry evermore
  Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
  Curves his white bastions with projected roof
  Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
  
  Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
  So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
  For number or proportion.
  
  Mockingly,
  On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
  A swan-like form invests the hiddden thorn;
  Fills up the famer's lane from wall to wall,
  Maugre the farmer's sighs; and at the gate
  A tapering turret overtops the work.
  
  And when his hours are numbered, and the world
  Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
  Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
  To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
  Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
  The frolic architecture of the snow.

• The Sphinx Read Poem Log in to favourite

  The Sphinx is drowsy,
  The wings are furled;
  Her ear is heavy,
  She broods on the world.
  
  "Who'll tell me my secret,
  The ages have kept?
  
  —
  I awaited the seer,
  While they slumbered and slept;—
  "The fate of the man-child;
  The meaning of man;
  Known fruit of the unknown;
  Daedalian plan;
  Out of sleeping a waking,
  Out of waking a sleep;
  Life death overtaking;
  Deep underneath deep?
  
  "Erect as a sunbeam,
  Upspringeth the palm;
  The elephant browses,
  Undaunted and calm;
  In beautiful motion
  The thrush plies his wings;
  Kind leaves of his covert,
  Your silence he sings.
  
  "The waves, unashamed,
  In difference sweet,
  Play glad with the breezes,
  Old playfellows meet;
  The journeying atoms,
  Primordial wholes,
  Firmly draw, firmly drive,
  By their animate poles.
  
  "Sea, earth, air, sound, silence,
  Plant, quadruped, bird,
  By one music enchanted,
  One deity stirred,—
  Each the other adorning,
  Accompany still;
  Night veileth the morning,
  The vapor the hill.
  
  "The babe by its mother
  Lies bathed in joy;
  Glide its hours uncounted,—
  The sun is its toy;
  Shines the peace of all being,
  Without cloud, in its eyes;
  And the sum of the world
  In soft miniature lies.
  
  "But man crouches and blushes,
  Absconds and conceals;
  He creepeth and peepeth,
  He palters and steals;
  Infirm, melancholy,
  Jealous glancing around,
  An oaf, an accomplice,
  He poisons the ground.
  
  "Outspoke the great mother,
  Beholding his fear;—
  At the sound of her accents
  Cold shuddered the sphere:—
  'Who has drugged my boy's cup?
  
  Who has mixed my boy's bread?
  
  Who, with sadness and madness,
  Has turned the man-child's head?
  
  '"
  I heard a poet answer,
  Aloud and cheerfully,
  "Say on, sweet Sphinx! thy dirges
  Are pleasant songs to me.
  
  Deep love lieth under
  These pictures of time;
  They fad in the light of
  Their meaning sublime.
  
  "The fiend that man harries
  Is love of the Best;
  Yawns the pit of the Dragon,
  Lit by rays from the Blest.
  
  The Lethe of nature
  Can't trace him again,
  Whose soul sees the perfect,
  Which his eyes seek in vain.
  
  "Profounder, profounder,
  Man's spirit must dive;
  To his aye-rolling orbit
  No goal will arrive;
  The heavens that now draw him
  With sweetness untold,
  Once found,—for new heavens
  He spurneth the old.
  
  "Pride ruined the angels,
  Their shame them restores;
  And the joy that is sweetest
  Lurks in stings of remorse.
  
  Have I a lover
  Who is noble and free?
  
  —
  I would he were nobler
  Than to love me.
  
  "Eterne alternation
  Now follows, now flied;
  And under pain, pleasure,—
  Under pleasure, pain lies.
  
  Love works at the centre,
  Heart-heaving alway;
  Forth speed the strong pulses
  To the borders of day.
  
  "Dull Sphinx, Jove keep thy five wits!
  Thy sight is growing blear;
  Rue, myrrh, and cummin for the Sphinx—
  Her muddy eyes to clear!"—
  The old Sphinx bit her thick lip,—
  Said, "Who taught thee me to name?
  
  I am thy spirit, yoke-fellow,
  Of thine eye I am eyebeam.
  
  "Thou art the unanswered question;
  Couldst see they proper eye,
  Alway it asketh, asketh;
  And each answer is a lie.
  
  So take thy quest through nature,
  It through thousand natures ply;
  Ask on, thou clothed eternity;
  Time is the false reply.
  
  "
  Uprose the merry Sphinx,
  And crouched no more in stone;
  She melted into purple cloud,
  She silvered in the moon;
  She spired into a yellow flame;
  She flowered in blossoms red;
  She flowed into a foaming wave;
  She stood Monadnoc's head.
  
  Through a thousand voices
  Spoke the universal dame:
  "Who telleth one of my meanings,
  Is master of all I am.
  
  "

• The Test Read Poem Log in to favourite

  I hung my verses in the wind,
  Time and tide their faults may find.
  
  All were winnowed through and through,
  Five lines lasted sound and true;
  Five were smelted in a pot
  Than the South more fierce and hot;
  These the siroc could not melt,
  Fire their fiercer flaming felt,
  And the meaning was more white
  Than July's meridian light.
  
  Sunshine cannot bleach the snow,
  Nor time unmake what poets know.
  
  Have you eyes to find the five
  Which five hundred did survive?

• The Titmouse Read Poem Log in to favourite

  You shall not be overbold
  When you deal with arctic cold,
  As late I found my lukewarm blood
  Chilled wading in the snow-choked wood.
  
  How should I fight?
  
  my foeman fine
  Has million arms to one of mine:
  East, west, for aid I looked in vain,
  East, west, north, south, are his domain.
  
  Miles off, three dangerous miles, is home;
  Must borrow his winds who there would come.
  
  Up and away for life! be fleet!--
  The frost-king ties my fumbling feet,
  Sings in my ears, my hands are stones,
  Curdles the blood to the marble bones,
  Tugs at the heart-strings, numbs the sense,
  And hems in life with narrowing fence.
  
  Well, in this broad bed lie and sleep,
  The punctual stars will vigil keep,
  Embalmed by purifying cold,
  The winds shall sing their dead-march old,
  The snow is no ignoble shroud,
  The moon thy mourner, and the cloud.
  
  Softly,--but this way fate was pointing,
  'T was coming fast to such anointing,
  When piped a tiny voice hard by,
  Gay and polite a cheerful cry,
  Chic-chicadeedee! saucy note
  Out of sound heart and merry throat,
  As if it said, 'Good day, good sir!
  Fine afternoon, old passenger!
  Happy to meet you in these places,
  Where January brings few faces.
  
  '
  This poet, though he live apart,
  Moved by his hospitable heart,
  Sped, when I passed his sylvan fort,
  To do the honours of his court,
  As fits a feathered lord of land;
  Flew near, with soft wing grazed my hand,
  Hopped on the bough, then, darting low,
  Prints his small impress on the snow,
  Shows feats of his gymnastic play,
  Head downward, clinging to the spray.
  
  Here was this atom in full breath,
  Hurling defiance at vast death;
  This scrap of valour just for play
  Fronts the north-wind in waistcoat gray,
  As if to shame my weak behaviour;
  I greeted loud my little saviour,
  'You pet! what dost here?
  
  and what for?
  
  In these woods, thy small Labrador,
  At this pinch, wee San Salvador!
  What fire burns in that little chest
  So frolic, stout, and self-possest?
  
  Henceforth I wear no stripe but thine;
  Ashes and jet all hues outshine.
  
  Why are not diamonds black and gray,
  To ape thy dare-devil array?
  
  And I affirm, the spacious North
  Exists to draw thy virtue forth.
  
  I think no virtue goes with size;
  The reason of all cowardice
  Is, that men are overgrown,
  And, to be valiant, must come down
  To the titmouse dimension.
  
  '
  'T is good-will makes intelligence,
  And I began to catch the sense
  Of my bird's song: 'Live out of doors,
  In the great woods, on prairie floors.
  
  I dine in the sun; when he sinks in the sea,
  I too have a hole in a hollow tree;
  And I like less when Summer beats
  With stifling beams on these retreats,
  Than noontide twilights which snow makes
  With tempest of the blinding flakes.
  
  For well the soul, if stout within,
  Can arm impregnably the skin;
  And polar frost my frame defied,
  Made of the air that blows outside.
  
  '
  With glad remembrance of my debt,
  I homeward turn; farewell, my pet!
  When here again thy pilgrim comes,
  He shall bring store of seeds and crumbs.
  
  Doubt not, so long as earth has bread,
  Thou first and foremost shalt be fed;
  The Providence that is most large
  Takes hearts like thine in special charge,
  Helps who for their own need are strong,
  And the sky dotes on cheerful song.
  
  Henceforth I prize thy wiry chant
  O'er all that mass and minster vaunt;
  For men mis-hear thy call in spring,
  As 't would accost some frivolous wing;
  Crying out of the hazel copse, Phe-be!
  And, in winter, Chic-a-dee-dee!
  I think old Caesar must have heard
  In northern Gaul my dauntless bird,
  And, echoed in some frosty wold,
  Borrowed thy battle-numbers bold.
  
  And I will write our annals new,
  And thank thee for a better clew,
  I, who dreamed not when I came here
  To find the antidote of fear,
  Now hear thee say in Roman key,
  Paean! Veni, vidi, vici.

• The Visit Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Askest "How long thou shall stay?
  
  "
  Devastator of the day!
  Know, each substance and relation
  Thorough nature's operation,
  Hath its unit, bound, and metre,
  And every new compound
  Is some product and repeater,
  Product of the early found.
  
  But the unit of the visit,
  The encounter of the wise,
  Say what other metre is it
  Than the meeting of the eyes?
  
  Nature poureth into nature
  Through the channels of that feature.
  
  Riding on the ray of Sight,
  More fleet than waves or whirlwinds go,
  Or for service or delight,
  Hearts to hearts their meaning show,
  Sum their long experience,
  And import intelligence.
  
  Single look has drained the breast,
  Single moment years confessed.
  
  The duration of a glance
  Is the term of convenance,
  And, though thy rede be church or state,
  Frugal multiples of that.
  
  Speeding Saturn cannot halt;
  Linger,— thou shall rue the fault,
  If Love his moment overstay,
  Hatred's swift repulsions play.

• The World-Soul Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Thanks to the morning light,
  Thanks to the seething sea,
  To the uplands of New Hampshire,
  To the green-haired forest free;
  Thanks to each man of courage,
  To the maids of holy mind,
  To the boy with his games undaunted,
  Who never looks behind.
  
  Cities of proud hotels,
  Houses of rich and great,
  Vice nestles in your chambers,
  Beneath your roofs of slate.
  
  It cannot conquer folly,
  Time-and-space-conquering steam,—
  And the light-outspeeding telegraph
  Bears nothing on its beam.
  
  The politics are base,
  The letters do not cheer,
  And 'tis far in the deeps of history—
  The voice that speaketh clear.
  
  Trade and the streets ensnare us,
  Our bodies are weak and worn,
  We plot and corrupt each other,
  And we despoil the unborn.
  
  Yet there in the parlor sits
  Some figure of noble guise,
  Our angel in a stranger's form,
  Or woman's pleading eyes;
  Or only a flashing sunbeam
  In at the window pane;
  Or music pours on mortals
  Its beautiful disdain.
  
  The inevitable morning
  Finds them who in cellars be,
  And be sure the all-loving Nature
  Will smile in a factory.
  
  Yon ridge of purple landscape,
  Yon sky between the walls,
  Hold all the hidden wonders
  In scanty intervals.
  
  Alas, the sprite that haunts us
  Deceives our rash desire,
  It whispers of the glorious gods,
  And leaves us in the mire:
  We cannot learn the cipher
  That's writ upon our cell,
  Stars help us by a mystery
  Which we could never spell.
  
  If but one hero knew it,
  The world would blush in flame,
  The sage, till he hit the secret,
  Would hang his head for shame.
  
  But our brothers have not read it,
  Not one has found the key,
  And henceforth we are comforted,
  We are but such as they.
  
  Still, still the secret presses,
  The nearing clouds draw down,
  The crimson morning flames into
  The fopperies of the town.
  
  Within, without, the idle earth
  Stars weave eternal rings,
  The sun himself shines heartily,
  And shares the joy he brings.
  
  And what if trade sow cities
  Like shells along the shore,
  And thatch with towns the prairie broad
  With railways ironed o'er;—
  They are but sailing foambells
  Along Thought's causing stream,
  And take their shape and Sun-color
  From him that sends the dream.
  
  For destiny does not like
  To yield to men the helm,
  And shoots his thought by hidden nerves
  Throughout the solid realm.
  
  The patient Dæmon sits
  With roses and a shroud,
  He has his way, and deals his gifts—
  But ours is not allowed.
  
  He is no churl or trifler,
  And his viceroy is none,
  Love-without-weakness,
  Of genius sire and son;
  And his will is not thwarted,—
  The seeds of land and sea
  Are the atoms of his body bright,
  And his behest obey.
  
  He serveth the servant,
  The brave he loves amain,
  He kills the cripple and the sick,
  And straight begins again;
  For gods delight in gods,
  And thrust the weak aside;
  To him who scorns their charities,
  Their arms fly open wide.
  
  When the old world is sterile,
  And the ages are effete,
  He will from wrecks and sediment
  The fairer world complete.
  
  He forbids to despair,
  His cheeks mantle with mirth,
  And the unimagined good of men
  Is yeaning at the birth.
  
  Spring still makes spring in the mind,
  When sixty years are told;
  Love wakes anew this throbbing heart,
  And we are never old.
  
  Over the winter glaciers,
  I see the summer glow,
  And through the wild-piled snowdrift
  The warm rose buds below.

• Threnody Read Poem Log in to favourite

  The south-wind brings
  Life, sunshine, and desire,
  And on every mount and meadow
  Breathes aromatic fire,
  But over the dead he has no power,
  The lost, the lost he cannot restore,
  And, looking over the hills, I mourn
  The darling who shall not return.
  
  I see my empty house,
  I see my trees repair their boughs,
  And he, —the wondrous child,
  Whose silver warble wild
  Outvalued every pulsing sound
  Within the air's cerulean round,
  The hyacinthine boy, for whom
  Morn well might break, and April bloom,
  The gracious boy, who did adorn
  The world whereinto he was born,
  And by his countenance repay
  The favor of the loving Day,
  Has disappeared from the Day's eye;
  Far and wide she cannot find him,
  My hopes pursue, they cannot bind him.
  
  Returned this day the south-wind searches
  And finds young pines and budding birches,
  But finds not the budding man;
  Nature who lost him, cannot remake him;
  Fate let him fall, Fate can't retake him;
  Nature, Fate, men, him seek in vain.
  
  And whither now, my truant wise and sweet,
  Oh, whither tend thy feet?
  
  I had the right, few days ago,
  Thy steps to watch, thy place to know;
  How have I forfeited the right?
  
  Hast thou forgot me in a new delight?
  
  I hearken for thy household cheer,
  O eloquent child!
  Whose voice, an equal messenger,
  Conveyed thy meaning mild.
  
  What though the pains and joys
  Whereof it spoke were toys
  Fitting his age and ken;—
  Yet fairest dames and bearded men,
  Who heard the sweet request
  So gentle, wise, and grave,
  Bended with joy to his behest,
  And let the world's affairs go by,
  Awhile to share his cordial game,
  Or mend his wicker wagon frame,
  Still plotting how their hungry ear
  That winsome voice again might hear,
  For his lips could well pronounce
  Words that were persuasions.
  
  Gentlest guardians marked serene
  His early hope, his liberal mien,
  Took counsel from his guiding eyes
  To make this wisdom earthly wise.
  
  Ah! vainly do these eyes recall
  The school-march, each day's festival,
  When every morn my bosom glowed
  To watch the convoy on the road;—
  The babe in willow wagon closed,
  With rolling eyes and face composed,
  With children forward and behind,
  Like Cupids studiously inclined,
  And he, the Chieftain, paced beside,
  The centre of the troop allied,
  With sunny face of sweet repose,
  To guard the babe from fancied foes,
  The little Captain innocent
  Took the eye with him as he went,
  Each village senior paused to scan
  And speak the lovely caravan.
  
  From the window I look out
  To mark thy beautiful parade
  Stately marching in cap and coat
  To some tune by fairies played;
  A music heard by thee alone
  To works as noble led thee on.
  
  Now love and pride, alas, in vain,
  Up and down their glances strain.
  
  The painted sled stands where it stood,
  The kennel by the corded wood,
  The gathered sticks to stanch the wall
  Of the snow-tower, when snow should fall,
  The ominous hole he dug in the sand,
  And childhood's castles built or planned.
  
  His daily haunts I well discern,
  The poultry yard, the shed, the barn,
  And every inch of garden ground
  Paced by the blessed feet around,
  From the road-side to the brook;
  Whereinto he loved to look.
  
  Step the meek birds where erst they ranged,
  The wintry garden lies unchanged,
  The brook into the stream runs on,
  But the deep-eyed Boy is gone.
  
  On that shaded day,
  Dark with more clouds than tempests are,
  When thou didst yield thy innocent breath
  In bird-like heavings unto death,
  Night came, and Nature had not thee,—
  I said, we are mates in misery.
  
  The morrow dawned with needless glow,
  Each snow-bird chirped, each fowl must crow,
  Each tramper started,— but the feet
  Of the most beautiful and sweet
  Of human youth had left the hill
  And garden,—they were bound and still,
  There's not a sparrow or a wren,
  There's not a blade of autumn grain,
  Which the four seasons do not tend,
  And tides of life and increase lend,
  And every chick of every bird,
  And weed and rock-moss is preferred.
  
  O ostriches' forgetfulness!
  O loss of larger in the less!
  Was there no star that could be sent,
  No watcher in the firmament,
  No angel from the countless host,
  That loiters round the crystal coast,
  Could stoop to heal that only child,
  Nature's sweet marvel undefiled,
  And keep the blossom of the earth,
  Which all her harvests were not worth?
  
  Not mine, I never called thee mine,
  But nature's heir,— if I repine,
  And, seeing rashly torn and moved,
  Not what I made, but what I loved.
  
  Grow early old with grief that then
  Must to the wastes of nature go,—
  'Tis because a general hope
  Was quenched, and all must doubt and grope
  For flattering planets seemed to say,
  This child should ills of ages stay,—
  By wondrous tongue and guided pen
  Bring the flown muses back to men.
  
  —
  Perchance, not he, but nature ailed,
  The world, and not the infant failed,
  It was not ripe yet, to sustain
  A genius of so fine a strain,
  Who gazed upon the sun and moon
  As if he came unto his own,
  And pregnant with his grander thought,
  Brought the old order into doubt.
  
  Awhile his beauty their beauty tried,
  They could not feed him, and he died,
  And wandered backward as in scorn
  To wait an Æon to be born.
  
  Ill day which made this beauty waste;
  Plight broken, this high face defaced!
  Some went and came about the dead,
  And some in books of solace read,
  Some to their friends the tidings say,
  Some went to write, some went to pray,
  One tarried here, there hurried one,
  But their heart abode with none.
  
  Covetous death bereaved us all
  To aggrandize one funeral.
  
  The eager Fate which carried thee
  Took the largest part of me.
  
  For this losing is true dying,
  This is lordly man's down-lying,
  This is slow but sure reclining,
  Star by star his world resigning.
  
  O child of Paradise!
  Boy who made dear his father's home
  In whose deep eyes
  Men read the welfare of the times to come;
  I am too much bereft;
  The world dishonored thou hast left;
  O truths and natures costly lie;
  O trusted, broken prophecy!
  O richest fortune sourly crossed;
  Born for the future, to the future lost!
  The deep Heart answered, Weepest thou?
  
  Worthier cause for passion wild,
  If I had not taken the child.
  
  And deemest thou as those who pore
  With aged eyes short way before?
  
  Think'st Beauty vanished from the coast
  Of matter, and thy darling lost?
  
  Taught he not thee, — the man of eld,
  Whose eyes within his eyes beheld
  Heaven's numerous hierarchy span
  The mystic gulf from God to man?
  
  To be alone wilt thou begin,
  When worlds of lovers hem thee in?
  
  To-morrow, when the masks shall fall
  That dizen nature's carnival,
  The pure shall see, by their own will,
  Which overflowing love shall fill,—
  'Tis not within the force of Fate
  The fate-conjoined to separate.
  
  But thou, my votary, weepest thou?
  
  I gave thee sight, where is it now?
  
  I taught thy heart beyond the reach
  Of ritual, Bible, or of speech;
  Wrote in thy mind's transparent table
  As far as the incommunicable;
  Taught thee each private sign to raise
  Lit by the supersolar blaze.
  
  Past utterance and past belief,
  And past the blasphemy of grief,
  The mysteries of nature's heart,—
  And though no muse can these impart,
  Throb thine with nature's throbbing breast,
  And all is clear from east to west.
  
  I came to thee as to a friend,
  Dearest, to thee I did not send
  Tutors, but a joyful eye,
  Innocence that matched the sky,
  Lovely locks a form of wonder,
  Laughter rich as woodland thunder;
  That thou might'st entertain apart
  The richest flowering of all art;
  And, as the great all-loving Day
  Through smallest chambers takes its way,
  That thou might'st break thy daily bread
  With Prophet, Saviour, and head;
  That thou might'st cherish for thine own
  The riches of sweet Mary's Son,
  Boy-Rabbi, Israel's Paragon:
  And thoughtest thou such guest
  Would in thy hall take up his rest?
  
  Would rushing life forget its laws,
  Fate's glowing revolution pause?
  
  High omens ask diviner guess,
  Not to be conned to tediousness.
  
  And know, my higher gifts unbind
  The zone that girds the incarnate mind,
  When the scanty shores are full
  With Thought's perilous whirling pool,
  When frail Nature can no more,—
  Then the spirit strikes the hour,
  My servant Death with solving rite
  Pours finite into infinite.
  
  Wilt thou freeze love's tidal flow,
  Whose streams through nature circling go?
  
  Nail the star struggling to its track
  On the half-climbed Zodiack?
  
  Light is light which radiates,
  Blood is blood which circulates,
  Life is life which generates,
  And many-seeming life is one,—
  Wilt thou transfix and make it none,
  Its onward stream too starkly pent
  In figure, bone, and lineament?
  
  Wilt thou uncalled interrogate
  Talker! the unreplying fate?
  
  Nor see the Genius of the whole
  Ascendant in the private soul,
  Beckon it when to go and come,
  Self-announced its hour of doom.
  
  Fair the soul's recess and shrine,
  Magic-built, to last a season,
  Masterpiece of love benign!
  Fairer than expansive reason
  Whose omen 'tis, and sign.
  
  Wilt thou not ope this heart to know
  What rainbows teach and sunsets show,
  Verdict which accumulates
  From lengthened scroll of human fates,
  Voice of earth to earth returned,
  Prayers of heart that inly burned;
  Saying, what is excellent,
  As God lives, is permanent
  Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain,
  Heart's love will meet thee again.
  
  Revere the Maker; fetch thine eye
  Up to His style, and manners of the sky.
  
  Not of adamant and gold
  Built He heaven stark and cold,
  No, but a nest of bending reeds,
  Flowering grass and scented weeds,
  Or like a traveller's fleeting tent,
  Or bow above the tempest pent,
  Built of tears and sacred flames,
  And virtue reaching to its aims;
  Built of furtherance and pursuing,
  Not of spent deeds, but of doing.
  
  Silent rushes the swift Lord
  Through ruined systems still restored,
  Broad-sowing, bleak and void to bless,
  Plants with worlds the wilderness,
  Waters with tears of ancient sorrow
  Apples of Eden ripe to-morrow;
  House and tenant go to ground,
  Lost in God, in Godhead found.

• To Ellen, At The South Read Poem Log in to favourite

  The green grass is growing,
  The morning wind is in it,
  'Tis a tune worth the knowing,
  Though it change every minute.
  
  'Tis a tune of the spring,
  Every year plays it over,
  To the robin on the wing,
  To the pausing lover.
  
  O'er ten thousand thousand acres
  Goes light the nimble zephyr,
  The flowers, tiny feet of shakers,
  Worship him ever.
  
  Hark to the winning sound!
  They summon thee, dearest,
  Saying; "We have drest for thee the ground,
  Nor yet thou appearest.
  
  "O hasten, 'tis our time,
  Ere yet the red summer
  Scorch our delicate prime,
  Loved of bee, the tawny hummer.
  
  "O pride of thy race!
  Sad in sooth it were to ours,
  If our brief tribe miss thy face,—
  We pour New England flowers.
  
  "Fairest! choose the fairest members
  Of our lithe society;
  June's glories and September's
  Show our love and piety.
  
  "Thou shalt command us all,
  April's cowslip, summer's clover
  To the gentian in the fall,
  Blue-eyed pet of blue-eyed lover.
  
  "O come, then, quickly come,
  We are budding, we are blowing,
  And the wind which we perfume
  Sings a tune that's worth thy knowing.
  
  "

• To Eva Read Poem Log in to favourite

  O Fair and stately maid, whose eye
  Was kindled in the upper sky
  At the same torch that lighted mine;
  For so I must interpret still
  Thy sweet dominion o'er my will,
  A sympathy divine.
  
  Ah! let me blameless gaze upon
  Features that seem in heart my own,
  Nor fear those watchful sentinels
  Which charm the more their glance forbids,
  Chaste glowing underneath their lids
  With fire that draws while it repels.
  
  Thine eyes still shined for me, though far
  I lonely roved the land or sea,
  As I behold yon evening star,
  Which yet beholds not me.
  
  This morn I climbed the misty hill,
  And roamed the pastures through;
  How danced thy form before my path,
  Amidst the deep-eyed dew!
  When the red bird spread his sable wing,
  And showed his side of flame,
  When the rose-bud ripened to the rose,
  In both I read thy name.

• To J.W. Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Set not thy foot on graves;
  Hear what wine and roses say;
  The mountain chase, the summer waves,
  The crowded town, thy feet may well delay.
  
  Set not thy foot on graves;
  Nor seek to unwind the shroud
  Which charitable time
  And nature have allowed
  To wrap the errors of a sage sublime.
  
  Set not thy foot on graves;
  Care not to strip the dead
  Of his sad ornament;
  His myrrh, and wine, and rings,
  His sheet of lead,
  And trophies buried;
  Go get them where he earned them when alive,
  As resolutely dig or dive.
  
  Life is too short to waste
  The critic bite or cynic bark,
  Quarrel, or reprimand;
  'Twill soon be dark;
  Up! mind thine own aim, and
  God speed the mark.

• To Laugh Often And Much Read Poem Log in to favourite

  To laugh often and much;
  to win the respect of the intelligent people
  and the affection of children;
  to earn the appreciation of honest critics
  and endure the betrayal of false friends;
  to appreciate beauty;
  to find the best in others;
  to leave the world a bit better
  whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch,
  or a redeemed social condition;
  to know that one life has breathed easier
  because you lived here.
  
  This is to have succeeded.

• To Rhea Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Thee, dear friend, a brother soothes,
  Not with flatteries, but truths,
  Which tarnish not, but purify
  To light which dims the morning's eye.
  
  I have come from the spring-woods,
  From the fragrant solitudes;
  Listen what the poplar tree,
  And murmuring waters counselled me.
  
  If with love thy heart has burned,
  If thy love is unreturned,
  Hide thy grief within thy breast,
  Though it tear thee unexpressed.
  
  For, when love has once departed
  From the eyes of the false-hearted,
  And one by one has torn off quite
  The bandages of purple light,
  Though thou weft the loveliest
  Form the Soul had ever dressed,
  Thou shalt seem in each reply
  A vixen to his altered eye;
  Thy softest pleadings seem too bold,
  Thy praying lute shall seem to scold.
  
  Though thou kept the straightest road,
  Yet thou errest far and broad.
  
  But thou shalt do as do the gods
  In their cloudless periods:
  For of this lore be thou sure,
  Though thou forget, the gods secure
  Forget never their command,
  But make the statute of this land:
  As they lead, so follow all,
  Ever have done, ever shall.
  
  Warning to the blind and deaf,
  'Tis written on the iron leaf,
  Who drinks of Cupid's nectar cup
  Loveth downward and not up;
  Therefore who loves, of gods or men,
  Shall not by the same be loved again;
  His sweetheart's idolatry
  Falls in turn a new degree.
  
  When a god is once beguiled
  By beauty of a mortal child,
  And by her radiant youth delighted,
  He is not fooled, but warily knoweth,
  His love shall never be requited;
  And thus the wise Immortal doeth.
  
  'Tis his study and delight
  To bless that creature, day and night,
  From all evils to defend her,
  In her lap to pour all splendor,
  To ransack earth for riches rare,
  And fetch her stars to deck her hair;
  He mixes music with her thoughts,
  And saddens her with heavenly doubts;
  All grace, all good his great heart knows,
  Profuse in love the king bestows,
  Saying, Hearken, Earth! Sea! Air!
  This monument of my despair
  Build I to the All-Good, All-Fair.
  
  Not for a private good,
  But I from my beatitude,
  Albeit scorned as none was scorned,
  Adorn her as was none adorned.
  
  I make this maiden an ensample
  To nature through her kingdoms ample,
  Whereby to model newer races,
  Statelier forms, and fairer faces,
  To carry man to new degrees
  Of power, and of comeliness.
  
  These presents be the hostages
  Which I pawn for my release;
  See to thyself, O universe!
  Thou art better and not worse.
  
  —
  And the god having given all,
  Is freed forever from his thrall.

• To-day Read Poem Log in to favourite

  I rake no coffined clay, nor publish wide
  The resurrection of departed pride.
  
  Safe in their ancient crannies, dark and deep,
  Let kings and conquerors, saints and soldiers sleep—
  Late in the world,—too late perchance for fame,
  Just late enough to reap abundant blame,—
  I choose a novel theme, a bold abuse
  Of critic charters, an unlaurelled Muse.
  
  Old mouldy men and books and names and lands
  Disgust my reason and defile my hands.
  
  I had as lief respect an ancient shoe,
  As love old things for age, and hate the new.
  
  I spurn the Past, my mind disdains its nod,
  Nor kneels in homage to so mean a God.
  
  I laugh at those who, while they gape and gaze,
  The bald antiquity of China praise.
  
  Youth is (whatever cynic tubs pretend)
  The fault that boys and nations soonest mend.

• Two Rivers Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Thy summer voice, Musketaquit,
  Repeats the music of the rain;
  But sweeter rivers pulsing flit
  Through thee, as thou through the Concord Plain.
  
  Thou in thy narrow banks art pent:
  The stream I love unbounded goes
  Through flood and sea and firmament;
  Through light, through life, it forward flows.
  
  I see the inundation sweet,
  I hear the spending of the steam
  Through years, through men, through Nature fleet,
  Through love and thought, through power and dream.
  
  Musketaquit, a goblin strong,
  Of shard and flint makes jewels gay;
  They lose their grief who hear his song,
  And where he winds is the day of day.
  
  So forth and brighter fares my stream,—
  Who drink it shall not thirst again;
  No darkness taints its equal gleam,
  And ages drop in it like rain.

• Una Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Roving, roving, as it seems,
  Una lights my clouded dreams;
  Still for journeys she is dressed;
  We wander far by east and west.
  
  In the homestead, homely thought;
  At my work I ramble not;
  If from home chance draw me wide,
  Half-seen Una sits beside.
  
  In my house and garden-plot,
  Though beloved, I miss her not;
  But one I seek in foreign places,
  One face explore in foreign faces.
  
  At home a deeper thought may light
  The inward sky with chrysolite,
  And I greet from far the ray,
  Aurora of a dearer day.
  
  But if upon the seas I sail,
  Or trundle on the glowing rail,
  I am but a thought of hers,
  Loveliest of travellers.
  
  So the gentle poet's name
  To foreign parts is blown by fame;
  Seek him in his native town,
  He is hidden and unknown.

• Unity Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Space is ample, east and west,
  But two cannot go abreast,
  Cannot travel in it two:
  Yonder masterful cuckoo
  Crowds every egg out of the nest,
  Quick or dead, except its own;
  A spell is laid on sod and stone,
  Night and day were tampered with,
  Every quality and pith
  Surcharged and sultry with a power
  That works its will on age and hour.

• Uriel Read Poem Log in to favourite

  It fell in the ancient periods
  Which the brooding soul surveys,
  Or ever the wild Time coin'd itself
  Into calendar months and days.
  
  This was the lapse of Uriel,
  Which in Paradise befell.
  
  Once, among the Pleiads walking,
  Sayd overheard the young gods talking;
  And the treason, too long pent,
  To his ears was evident.
  
  The young deities discuss'd
  Laws of form, and metre just,
  Orb, quintessence, and sunbeams,
  What subsisteth, and what seems.
  
  One, with low tones that decide,
  And doubt and reverend use defied,
  With a look that solved the sphere,
  And stirr'd the devils everywhere,
  Gave his sentiment divine
  Against the being of a line.
  
  'Line in nature is not found;
  Unit and universe are round;
  In vain produced, all rays return;
  Evil will bless, and ice will burn.
  
  '
  As Uriel spoke with piercing eye,
  A shudder ran around the sky;
  The stern old war-gods shook their heads;
  The seraphs frown'd from myrtle-beds;
  Seem'd to the holy festival
  The rash word boded ill to all;
  The balance-beam of Fate was bent;
  The bounds of good and ill were rent;
  Strong Hades could not keep his own,
  But all slid to confusion.
  
  A sad self-knowledge withering fell
  On the beauty of Uriel;
  In heaven once eminent, the god
  Withdrew that hour into his cloud;
  Whether doom'd to long gyration
  In the sea of generation,
  Or by knowledge grown too bright
  To hit the nerve of feebler sight.
  
  Straightway a forgetting wind
  Stole over the celestial kind,
  And their lips the secret kept,
  If in ashes the fire-seed slept.
  
  But, now and then, truth-speaking things
  Shamed the angels' veiling wings;
  And, shrilling from the solar course,
  Or from fruit of chemic force,
  Procession of a soul in matter,
  Or the speeding change of water,
  Or out of the good of evil born,
  Came Uriel's voice of cherub scorn,
  And a blush tinged the upper sky,
  And the gods shook, they knew not why

• Voluntaries Read Poem Log in to favourite

  I.
  
  Low and mournful be the strain,
  Haughty thought be far from me;
  Tones of penitence and pain,
  Moanings of the tropic sea;
  Low and tender in the cell
  Where a captive sits in chains,
  Crooning ditties treasured well
  From his Afric's torrid plains.
  
  Sole estate his sire bequeathed--
  Hapless sire to hapless son--
  Was the wailing song he breathed,
  And his chain when life was done.
  
  What his fault, or what his crime?
  
  Or what ill planet crossed his prime?
  
  Heart too soft and will too weak
  To front the fate that crouches near,--
  Dove beneath the vulture's beak;--
  Will song dissuade the thirsty spear?
  
  Dragged from his mother's arms and breast,
  Displaced, disfurnished here,
  His wistful toil to do his best
  Chilled by a ribald jeer.
  
  Great men in the Senate sate,
  Sage and hero, side by side,
  Building for their sons the State,
  Which they shall rule with pride.
  
  They forbore to break the chain
  Which bound the dusky tribe,
  Checked by the owners' fierce disdain,
  Lured by "Union" as the bribe.
  
  Destiny sat by, and said,
  'Pang for pang your seed shall pay,
  Hide in false peace your coward head,
  I bring round the harvest-day.
  
  '
  II.
  
  Freedom all winged expands,
  Nor perches in a narrow place;
  Her broad van seeks unplanted lands;
  She loves a poor and virtuous race.
  
  Clinging to a colder zone
  Whose dark sky sheds the snow-flake down,
  The snow-flake is her banner's star,
  Her stripes the boreal streamers are.
  
  Long she loved the Northman well:
  Now the iron age is done,
  She will not refuse to dwell
  With the offspring of the Sun;
  Foundling of the desert far,
  Where palms plume, siroccos blaze,
  He roves unhurt the burning ways
  In climates of the summer star.
  
  He has avenues to God
  Hid from men of Northern brain,
  Far beholding, without cloud,
  What these with slowest steps attain.
  
  If once the generous chief arrive
  To lead him willing to be led,
  For freedom he will strike and strive,
  And drain his heart till he be dead.
  
  III.
  
  In an age of fops and toys,
  Wanting wisdom, void of right,
  Who shall nerve heroic boys
  To hazard all in Freedom's fight,--
  Break sharply off their jolly games,
  Forsake their comrades gay,
  And quit proud homes and youthful dames,
  For famine, toil, and fray?
  
  Yet on the nimble air benign
  Speed nimbler messages,
  That waft the breath of grace divine
  To hearts in sloth and ease.
  
  So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
  So near is God to man,
  When Duty whispers low, Thou must,
  The youth replies, I can.
  
  IV.
  
  O, well for the fortunate soul
  Which Music's wings infold,
  Stealing away the memory
  Of sorrows new and old!
  Yet happier he whose inward sight,
  Stayed on his subtile thought,
  Shuts his sense on toys of time,
  To vacant bosoms brought.
  
  But best befriended of the God
  He who, in evil times,
  Warned by an inward voice,
  Heeds not the darkness and the dread,
  Biding by his rule and choice,
  Feeling only the fiery thread
  Leading over heroic ground,
  Walled with mortal terror round,
  To the aim which him allures,
  And the sweet heaven his deed secures.
  
  Stainless soldier on the walls,
  Knowing this,--and knows no more,--
  Whoever fights, whoever falls,
  Justice conquers evermore, Justice after as before,--
  And he who battles on her side,
  God, though he were ten times slain,
  Crowns him victor glorified,
  Victor over death and pain;
  Forever: but his erring foe,
  Self-assured that he prevails,
  Looks from his victim lying low,
  And sees aloft the red right arm
  Redress the eternal scales.
  
  He, the poor foe, whom angels foil,
  Blind with pride, and fooled by hate,
  Writhes within the dragon coil,
  Reserved to a speechless fate.
  
  V.
  
  Blooms the laurel which belongs
  To the valiant chief who fights;
  I see the wreath, I hear the songs
  Lauding the Eternal Rights,
  Victors over daily wrongs:
  Awful victors, they misguide
  Whom they will destroy,
  And their coming triumph hide
  In our downfall, or our joy:
  They reach no term, they never sleep,
  In equal strength through space abide;
  Though, feigning dwarfs, they crouch and creep,
  The strong they slay, the swift outstride:
  Fate's grass grows rank in valley clods,
  And rankly on the castled steep,--
  Speak it firmly, these are gods,
  All are ghosts beside.

• Waldeinsamkeit Read Poem Log in to favourite

  I do not count the hours I spend
  In wandering by the sea;
  The forest is my loyal friend,
  Like God it useth me.
  
  In plains that room for shadows make
  Of skirting hills to lie,
  Bound in by streams which give and take
  Their colours from the sky;
  Or on the mountain-crest sublime,
  Or down the oaken glade,
  O what have I to do with time?
  
  For this the day was made.
  
  Cities of mortals woe begone
  Fantastic care derides,
  But in the serious landscape lone
  Stern benefit abides.
  
  Sheen will tarnish, honey cloy,
  And merry is only a mask of sad,
  But, sober on a fund of joy,
  The woods at heart are glad.
  
  There the great Planter plants
  Of fruitful worlds the grain,
  And with a million spells enchants
  The souls that walk in pain.
  
  Still on the seeds of all he made
  The rose of beauty burns;
  Through times that wear, and forms that fade,
  Immortal youth returns.
  
  The black ducks mounting from the lake,
  The pigeon in the pines,
  The bittern's boom, a desert make
  Which no false art refines.
  
  Down in yon watery nook,
  Where bearded mists divide,
  The gray old gods whom Chaos knew,
  The sires of Nature, hide.
  
  Aloft, in secret veins of air,
  Blows the sweet breath of song,
  O, few to scale those uplands dare,
  Though they to all belong!
  See thou bring not to field or stone
  The fancies found in books;
  Leave authors' eyes, and fetch your own,
  To brave the landscape's looks.
  
  And if, amid this dear delight,
  My thoughts did home rebound,
  I well might reckon it a slight
  To the high cheer I found.
  
  Oblivion here thy wisdom is,
  Thy thrift, the sleep of cares;
  For a proud idleness like this
  Crowns all thy mean affairs.

• Water Read Poem Log in to favourite

  The water understands
  Civilization well;
  It wets my foot, but prettily,
  It chills my life, but wittily,
  It is not disconcerted,
  It is not broken-hearted:
  Well used, it decketh joy,
  Adorneth, doubleth joy:
  Ill used, it will destroy,
  In perfect time and measure
  With a face of golden pleasure
  Elegantly destroy.

• Waves Read Poem Log in to favourite

  ALL day the waves assailed the rock,
  I heard no church-bell chime;
  The sea-beat scorns the minster clock
  And breaks the glass of Time.

• Wealth Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Who shall tell what did befall,
  Far away in time, when once,
  Over the lifeless ball,
  Hung idle stars and suns?
  
  What god the element obeyed?
  
  Wings of what wind the lichen bore,
  Wafting the puny seeds of power,
  Which, lodged in rock, the rock abrade?
  
  And well the primal pioneer
  Knew the strong task to it assigned,
  Patient through Heaven's enormous year
  To build in matter home for mind.
  
  From air the creeping centuries drew
  The matted thicked low and wide,
  This must the leaves of ages strew
  The granite slab to clothe and hide,
  Ere wheat can wave its golden pride.
  
  What smiths, and in what furnace, rolled
  (In dizzy aeons dim and mute
  The reeling brain can ill compute)
  Copper and iron, lead and gold?
  
  What oldest star the fame can save
  Of races perishing to pave
  The planet with a floor of lime?
  
  Dust is their pyramid and mole:
  Who saw that ferns and palms were pressed
  Under the trembling mountain's breast,
  In the safe herbal of the coal?
  
  But when the quarried means were piled,
  All is waste and worthless, till
  Arrives the wise selecting will,
  And,out of slime and chaos, Wit
  Draws the threads of fair and fit.
  
  Then temples rose, and towns, and marts,
  The shop of toil, the hall of arts;
  Then flew the sail across the seas
  To feed the North from tropic trees;
  The storm-wind wove, the torrent span,
  Where they were bid the rivers ran;
  New slaves fulfilled the poet's dream,
  Galvanic wire, strong-shouldered steam.
  
  Then docks were built, and crops were stored,
  And ingots added to the hoard.
  
  But, though light-hearted man forget,
  Remembering Matter pays her debt:
  Still, though her motes and masses, draw
  Electric thrills and ties of Law,
  Which bind the strength of Nature wild
  To the conscience of a child.

• Woodnotes Read Poem Log in to favourite

  I
  WHEN the pine tosses its cones
  To the song of its waterfall tones,
  Who speeds to the woodland walks?
  
  To birds and trees who talks?
  
  Cæsar of his leafy Rome,
  There the poet is at home.
  
  He goes to the river-side,—
  Not hook nor line hath he;
  He stands in the meadows wide,—
  Nor gun nor scythe to see.
  
  Sure some god his eye enchants:
  What he knows nobody wants.
  
  In the wood he travels glad,
  Without better fortune had,
  Melancholy without bad.
  
  Knowledge this man prizes best
  Seems fantastic to the rest:
  Pondering shadows, colors, clouds,
  Grass-buds and caterpillar-shrouds,
  Boughs on which the wild bees settle,
  Tints that spot the violet's petal,
  Why Nature loves the number five,
  And why the star-form she repeats:
  Lover of all things alive,
  Wonderer at all he meets,
  Wonderer chiefly at himself,
  Who can tell him what he is?
  
  Or how meet in human elf
  Coming and past eternities?
  
  2
  And such I knew, a forest seer,
  A minstrel of the natural year,
  Foreteller of the vernal ides,
  Wise harbinger of spheres and tides,
  A lover true, who knew by heart
  Each joy the mountain dales impart;
  It seemed that Nature could not raise
  A plant in any secret place,
  In quaking bog, on snowy hill,
  Beneath the grass that shades the rill,
  Under the snow, between the rocks,
  In damp fields known to bird and fox.
  
  But he would come in the very hour
  It opened in its virgin bower,
  As if a sunbeam showed the place,
  And tell its long-descended race.
  
  It seemed as if the breezes brought him,
  It seemed as if the sparrows taught him;
  As if by secret sight he knew
  Where, in far fields, the orchis grew.
  
  Many haps fall in the field
  Seldom seen by wishful eyes,
  But all her shows did Nature yield,
  To please and win this pilgrim wise.
  
  He saw the partridge drum in the woods;
  He heard the woodcock's evening hymn;
  He found the tawny thrushes' broods;
  And the shy hawk did wait for him;
  What others did at distance hear,
  And guessed within the thicket's gloom,
  Was shown to this philosopher,
  And at his bidding seemed to come.
  
  3
  In unploughed Maine he sought the lumberers' gang
  Where from a hundred lakes young rivers sprang;
  He trod the unplanted forest floor, whereon
  The all-seeing sun for ages hath not shone;
  Where feeds the moose, and walks the surly bear,
  And up the tall mast runs the woodpecker.
  
  He saw beneath dim aisles, in odorous beds,
  The slight Linnæa hang its twin-born heads,
  And blessed the monument of the man of flowers,
  Which breathes his sweet fame'through the northern bowers.
  
  He heard, when in the grove, at intervals,
  With sudden roar the aged pine-tree falls,—
  One crash, the death-hymn of the perfect tree,
  Declares the close of its green century.
  
  Low lies the plant to whose creation went
  Sweet influence from every element;
  Whose living towers the years conspired to build,
  Whose giddy top the morning loved to gild.
  
  Through these green tents, by eldest Nature dressed,
  He roamed, content alike with man and beast.
  
  Where darkness found him he lay glad at night;
  There the red morning touched him with its light.
  
  Three moons his great heart him a hermit made,
  So long he roved at will the boundless shade.
  
  The timid it concerns to ask their way,
  And fear what foe in caves and swamps can stray,
  To make no step until the event is known,
  And ills to come as evils past bemoan.
  
  Not so the wise; no coward watch he keeps
  To spy what danger on his pathway creeps;
  Go where he will, the wise man is at home,
  His hearth the earth,—his hall the azure dome;
  Where his clear spirit leads him, there's his road
  By God's own light illumined and foreshowed.
  
  4
  'T was one of the charmèd days
  When the genius of God doth flow;
  The wind may alter twenty ways,
  A tempest cannot blow;
  It may blow north, it still is warm;
  Or south, it still is clear;
  Or east, it smells like a clover-farm;
  Or west, no thunder fear.
  
  The musing peasant, lowly great,
  Beside the forest water sate;
  The rope-like pine-roots crosswise grown
  Composed the network of his throne;
  The wide lake, edged with sand and grass,
  Was burnished to a floor of glass,
  Painted with shadows green and proud
  Of the tree and of the cloud.
  
  He was the heart of all the scene;
  On him the sun looked more serene;
  To hill and cloud his face was known,—
  It seemed the likeness of their own;
  They knew by secret sympathy
  The public child of earth and sky.
  
  'You ask,' he said,'what guide
  Me through trackless thickets led,
  Through thick-stemmed woodlands rough and wide.
  
  I found the water's bed.
  
  The watercourses were my guide;
  I travelled grateful by their side,
  Or through their channel dry;
  They led me through the thicket damp,
  Through brake and fern, the beavers' camp,
  Through beds of granite cut my road,
  And their resistless friendship showed.
  
  The falling waters led me,
  The foodful waters fed me,
  And brought me to the lowest land
  Unerring to the ocean sand.
  
  The moss upon the forest bark
  Was pole-star when the night was dark;
  The purple berries in the wood
  Supplied me necessary food;
  For Nature ever faithful is
  To such as trust her faithfulness.
  
  When the forest shall mislead me,
  When the night and morning lie,
  When sea and land refuse to feed me,
  'T will be time enough to die;
  Then will yet my mother yield
  A pillow in her greenest field,
  Nor the June flowers scorn to cover
  The clay of their departed lover.
  
  '
  II
  As sunbeams stream through liberal space
  And nothing jostle or displace,
  So waved the pine-tree through my thought
  And fanned the dreams it never brought.
  
  'Whether is better, the gift or the donor?
  
  Come to me,'
  Quoth the pine-tree,
  'I am the giver of honor.
  
  My garden is the cloven rock,
  And my manure the snow;
  And drifting sand-heaps feed my stock,
  In summer's scorching glow.
  
  He is great who can live by me:
  The rough and bearded forester
  Is better than the lord;
  God fills the scrip and canister,
  Sin piles the loaded board.
  
  The lord is the peasant that was,
  The peasant the lord that shall be;
  The lord is hay, the peasant grass,
  One dry, and one the living tree.
  
  Who liveth by the ragged pine
  Foundeth a heroic line;
  Who liveth in the palace hall
  Waneth fast and spendeth all.
  
  He goes to my savage haunts,
  With his chariot and his care;
  My twilight realm he disenchants,
  And finds his prison there.
  
  'What prizes the town and the tower?
  
  Only what the pine-tree yields;
  Sinew that subdued the fields;
  The wild-eyed boy, who in the woods
  Chants his hymn to hills and floods,
  Whom the city's poisoning spleen
  Made not pale, or fat, or lean;
  Whom the rain and the wind purgeth,
  Whom the dawn and the day-star urgeth,
  In whose cheek the rose-leaf blusheth,
  In whose feet the lion rusheth,
  Iron arms, and iron mould,
  That know not fear, fatigue, or cold.
  
  I give my rafters to his boat,
  My billets to his boiler's throat,
  And I will swim the ancient sea
  To float my child to victory,
  And grant to dwellers with the pine
  Dominion o'er the palm and vine.
  
  Who leaves the pine-tree, leaves his friend,
  Unnerves his strength, invites his end.
  
  Cut a bough from my parent stem,
  And dip it in thy porcelain vase;
  A little while each russet gem
  Will swell and rise with wonted grace;
  But when it seeks enlarged supplies,
  The orphan of the forest dies.
  
  Whoso walks in solitude
  And inhabiteth the wood,
  Choosing light, wave, rock and bird,
  Before the money-loving herd,
  Into that forester shall pass,
  From these companions, power and grace.
  
  Clean shall he be, without, within,
  From the old adhering sin,
  All ill dissolving in the light
  Of his triumphant piercing sight:
  Not vain, sour, nor frivolous;
  Not mad, athirst, nor garrulous;
  Grave, chaste, contented, though retired,
  And of all other men desired.
  
  On him the light of star and moon
  Shall fall with purer radiance down;
  All constellations of the sky
  Shed their virtue through his eye.
  
  Him Nature giveth for defence
  His formidable innocence;
  The mounting sap, the shells, the sea,
  All spheres, all stones, his helpers be;
  He shall meet the speeding year,
  Without wailing, without fear;
  He shall be happy in his love,
  Like to like shall joyful prove;
  He shall be happy whilst he wooes,
  Muse-born, a daughter of the Muse.
  
  But if with gold she bind her hair,
  And deck her breast with diamond,
  Take off thine eyes, thy heart forbear,
  Though thou lie alone on the ground.
  
  ' Heed the old oracles,
  Ponder my spells;
  Song wakes in my pinnacles
  When the wind swells.
  
  Soundeth the prophetic wind,
  The shadows shake on the rock behind,
  And the countless leaves of the pine are strings
  Tuned to the lay the wood-god sings.
  
  Hearken! Hearken!
  If thou wouldst know the mystic song
  Chanted when the sphere was young.
  
  Aloft, abroad, the pæan swells;
  O wise man! hear'st thou half it tells?
  
  O wise man! hear'st thou the least part?
  
  'T is the chronicle of art.
  
  To the open ear it sings
  Sweet the genesis of things,
  Of tendency through endless ages,
  Of star-dust, and star-pilgrimages,
  Of rounded worlds, of space and time,
  Of the old flood's subsiding slime,
  Of chemic matter, force and form,
  Of poles and powers, cold, wet, and warm:
  The rushing metamorphosis
  Dissolving all that fixture is,
  Melts things that be to things that seem,
  And solid nature to a dream.
  
  O, listen to the undersong,
  The ever old, the ever young;
  And, far within those cadent pauses,
  The chorus of the ancient Causes!
  Delights the dreadful Destiny
  To fling his voice into the tree,
  And shock thy weak ear with a note
  Breathed from the everlasting throat.
  
  In music he repeats the pang
  Whence the fair flock of Nature sprang.
  
  O mortal! thy ears are stones;
  These echoes are laden with tones
  Which only the pure can hear;
  Thou canst not catch what they recite
  Of Fate and Will, of Want and Right,
  Of man to come, of human life,
  Of Death and Fortune, Growth and Strife.
  
  '
  Once again the pine-tree sung:—
  ' Speak not thy speech my boughs among:
  Put off thy years, wash in the breeze;
  My hours are peaceful centuries.
  
  Talk no more with feeble tongue;
  No more the fool of space and time,
  Come weave with mine a nobler rhyme.
  
  Only thy Americans
  Can read thy line, can meet thy glance,
  But the runes that I rehearse
  Understands the universe;
  The least breath my boughs which tossed
  Brings again the Pentecost;
  To every soul resounding clear
  In a voice of solemn cheer,—
  "Am I not thine?
  
  Are not these thine?
  
  "
  And they reply, "Forever mine!"
  My branches speak Italian,
  English, German, Basque, Castilian,
  Mountain speech to Highlanders,
  Ocean tongues to islanders,
  To Fin and Lap and swart Malay,
  To each his bosom-secret say.
  
  'Come learn with me the fatal song
  Which knits the world in music strong,
  Come lift thine eyes to lofty rhymes,
  Of things with things, of times with times,
  Primal chimes of sun and shade,
  Of sound and echo, man and maid,
  The land reflected in the flood,
  Body with shadow still pursued.
  
  For Nature beats in perfect tune,
  And rounds with rhyme her every rune,
  Whether she work in land or sea,
  Or hide underground her alchemy.
  
  Thou canst not wave thy staff in air,
  Or dip thy paddle in the lake,
  But it carves the bow of beauty there,
  And the ripples in rhymes the oar forsake.
  
  The wood is wiser far than thou;
  The wood and wave each other know
  Not unrelated, unaffied,
  But to each thought and thing allied,
  Is perfect Nature's every part,
  Rooted in the mighty Heart.
  
  But thou, poor child! unbound, unrhymed,
  Whence camest thou, misplaced, mistimed,
  Whence, O thou orphan and defrauded?
  
  Is thy land peeled, thy realm marauded?
  
  Who thee divorced, deceived and left?
  
  Thee of thy faith who hath bereft,
  And torn the ensigns from thy brow,
  And sunk the immortal eye so low?
  
  Thy cheek too white, thy form too slender,
  Thy gait too slow, thy habits tender
  For royal man;—they thee confess
  An exile from the wilderness,—
  The hills where health with health agrees,
  And the wise soul expels disease.
  
  Hark! in thy ear I will tell the sign
  By which thy hurt thou may'st divine.
  
  'When thou shalt climb the mountain cliff,
  Or see the wide shore from thy skiff,
  To thee the horizon shall express
  But emptiness on emptiness;
  There lives no man of Nature's worth
  In the circle of the earth;
  And to thine eye the vast skies fall,
  Dire and satirical,
  On clucking hens and prating fools,
  On thieves, on drudges and on dolls.
  
  And thou shalt say to the Most High,
  "Godhead! all this astronomy,
  And fate and practice and invention,
  Strong art and beautiful pretension,
  This radiant pomp of sun and star,
  Throes that were, and worlds that are,
  Behold! were in vain and in vain;—
  It cannot be,—I will look again.
  
  Surely now will the curtain rise,
  And earth's fit tenant me surprise;—
  But the curtain doth not rise,
  And Nature has miscarried wholly
  Into failure, into folly.
  
  "
  'Alas! thine is the bankruptcy,
  Blessed Nature so to see.
  
  Come, lay thee in my soothing shade,
  And heal the hurts which sin has made.
  
  I see thee in the crowd alone;
  I will be thy companion.
  
  Quit thy friends as the dead in doom,
  And build to them a final tomb;
  Let the starred shade that nightly falls
  Still celebrate their funerals,
  And the bell of beetle and of bee
  Knell their melodious memory.
  
  Behind thee leave thy merchandise,
  Thy churches and thy charities;
  And leave thy peacock wit behind;
  Enough for thee the primal mind
  That flows in streams, that breathes in wind:
  Leave all thy pedant lore apart;
  God hid the whole world in thy heart.
  
  Love shuns the sage, the child it crowns,
  Gives all to them who all renounce.
  
  The rain comes when the wind calls;
  The river knows the way to the sea;
  Without a pilot it runs and falls,
  Blessing all lands with its charity;
  The sea tosses and foams to find
  Its way up to the cloud and wind;
  The shadow sits close to the flying ball;
  The date fails not on the palm-tree tall;
  And thou,—go burn thy wormy pages,—
  Shalt outsee seers, and outwit sages.
  
  Oft didst thou thread the woods in vain
  To find what bird had piped the strain:—
  Seek not, and the little eremite
  Flies gayly forth and sings in sight.
  
  'Hearken once more!
  I will tell thee the mundane lore.
  
  Older am I than thy numbers wot,
  Change I may, but I pass not.
  
  Hitherto all things fast abide,
  And anchored in the tempest ride.
  
  Trenchant time behoves to hurry
  All to yean and all to bury:
  All the forms are fugitive,
  But the substances survive.
  
  Ever fresh the broad creation,
  A divine improvisation,
  From the heart of God proceeds,
  A single will, a million deeds.
  
  Once slept the world an egg of stone,
  And pulse, and sound, and light was none;
  And God said, "Throb!" and there was motion
  And the vast mass became vast ocean.
  
  Onward and on, the eternal Pan,
  Who layeth the world's incessant plan,
  Halteth never in one shape,
  But forever doth escape,
  Like wave or flame, into new forms
  Of gem, and air, of plants, and worms.
  
  I, that to-day am a pine,
  Yesterday was a bundle of grass.
  
  He is free and libertine,
  Pouring of his power the wine
  To every age, to every race;.
  
  Unto every race and age
  He emptieth the beverage;
  Unto each, and unto all,
  Maker and original.
  
  The world is the ring of his spells,
  And the play of his miracles.
  
  As he giveth to all to drink,
  Thus or thus they are and think.
  
  With one drop sheds form and feature;
  With the next a special nature;
  The third adds heat's indulgent spark;
  The fourth gives light which eats the dark;
  Into the fifth himself he flings,
  And conscious Law is King of kings.
  
  As the bee through the garden ranges,
  From world to world the godhead changes;
  As the sheep go feeding in the waste,
  From form to form He maketh haste;
  This vault which glows immense with light
  Is the inn where he lodges for a night.
  
  What reeks such Traveller if the bowers
  Which bloom and fade like meadow flowers
  A bunch of fragrant lilies be,
  Or the stars of eternity?
  
  Alike to him the better, the worse,—
  The glowing angel, the outcast corse.
  
  Thou metest him by centuries,
  And lo! he passes like the breeze;
  Thou seek'st in globe and galaxy,
  He hides in pure transparency;
  Thou askest in fountains and in fires,
  He is the essence that inquires.
  
  He is the axis of the star;
  He is the sparkle of the spar;
  He is the heart of every creature;
  He is the meaning of each feature;
  And his mind is the sky.
  
  Than all it holds more deep, more high.
  
  '

• Worship Read Poem Log in to favourite

  This is he, who, felled by foes,
  Sprung harmless up, refreshed by blows
  He to captivity was sold,
  But him no prison-bars would hold:
  Though they sealed him in a rock,
  Mountain chains he can unlock:
  Thrown to lions for their meat,
  The crouching lion kissed his feet:
  Bound to the stake, no flames appalled,
  But arched o’er him an honouring vault.
  
  This is he men miscall Fate,
  Threading dark ways, arriving late,
  But ever coming in time to crown
  The truth, and hurl wrong-doers down.
  
  He is the oldest, and best known,
  More near than aught thou call’st thy own,
  Yet, greeted in another’s eyes,
  Disconcerts with glad surprise.
  
  This is Jove, who, deaf to prayers,
  Floods with blessings unawares.
  
  Draw, if thou canst, the mystic line
  Severing rightly his from thine,
  Which is human, which divine.

• Each and All Read Poem Log in to favourite

  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.

• Give All to Love Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Give all to love;
  Obey thy heart;
  Friends, kindred, days,
  Estate, good-fame,
  Plans, credit and the Muse,—
  Nothing refuse.
  
  ’T is a brave master;
  Let it have scope:
  Follow it utterly,
  Hope beyond hope:
  High and more high
  It dives into noon,
  With wing unspent,
  Untold intent:
  But it is a god,
  Knows its own path
  And the outlets of the sky.
  
  It was never for the mean;
  It requireth courage stout.
  
  Souls above doubt,
  Valor unbending,
  It will reward,—
  They shall return
  More than they were,
  And ever ascending.
  
  Leave all for love;
  Yet, hear me, yet,
  One word more thy heart behoved,
  One pulse more of firm endeavor,—
  Keep thee to-day,
  To-morrow, forever,
  Free as an Arab
  Of thy beloved.
  
  Cling with life to the maid;
  But when the surprise,
  First vague shadow of surmise
  Flits across her bosom young,
  Of a joy apart from thee,
  Free be she, fancy-free;
  Nor thou detain her vesture’s hem,
  Nor the palest rose she flung
  From her summer diadem.
  
  Though thou loved her as thyself,
  As a self of purer clay,
  Though her parting dims the day,
  Stealing grace from all alive;
  Heartily know,
  When half-gods go,
  The gods arrive.

• Good-Bye Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home:
  Thou art not my friend, and I'm not thine.
  
  Long through thy weary crowds I roam;
  A river-ark on the ocean brine,
  Long I've been tossed like the driven foam;
  But now, proud world! I'm going home.
  
  Good-bye to Flattery's fawning face;
  To Grandeur with his wise grimace;
  To upstart Wealth's averted eye;
  To supple Office, low and high;
  To crowded halls, to court and street;
  To frozen hearts and hasting feet;
  To those who go, and those who come;
  Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home.
  
  I am going to my own hearth-stone,
  Bosomed in yon green hills alone, —
  A secret nook in a pleasant land,
  Whose groves the frolic fairies planned;
  Where arches green, the livelong day,
  Echo the blackbird's roundelay,
  And vulgar feet have never trod
  A spot that is sacred to thought and God.
  
  O, when I am safe in my sylvan home,
  I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome;
  And when I am stretched beneath the pines,
  Where the evening star so holy shines,
  I laugh at the lore and the pride of man,
  At the sophist schools, and the learned clan;
  For what are they all, in their high conceit,
  When man in the bush with God may meet?

• Limits Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Who knows this or that?
  
  Hark in the wall to the rat:
  Since the world was, he has gnawed;
  Of his wisdom, of his fraud
  What dost thou know?
  
  In the wretched little beast
  Is life and heart,
  Child and parent,
  Not without relation
  To fruitful field and sun and moon.
  
  What art thou?
  
  His wicked eye
  Is cruel to thy cruelty.

• Ode,Inscribed to William H. Channing Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Though loath to grieve
  The evil time's sole patriot,
  I cannot leave
  My honied thought
  For the priest's cant,
  Or statesman's rant.
  
  If I refuse
  My study for their politique,
  Which at the best is trick,
  The angry Muse
  Puts confusion in my brain.
  
  But who is he that prates
  Of the culture of mankind,
  Of better arts and life?
  
  Go, blindworm, go,
  Behold the famous States
  Harrying Mexico
  With rifle and with knife!
  
  Or who, with accent bolder,
  Dare praise the freedom-loving mountaineer?
  
  I found by thee, O rushing Contoocook!
  And in thy valleys, Agiochook!
  The jackals of the negro-holder.
  
  The God who made New Hampshire
  Taunted the lofty land
  With little men; —
  Small bat and wren
  House in the oak: —
  If earth-fire cleave
  The upheaved land, and bury the folk,
  The southern crocodile would grieve.
  
  Virtue palters; Right is hence;
  Freedom praised, but hid;
  Funeral eloquence
  Rattles the coffin-lid.
  
  What boots thy zeal,
  O glowing friend,
  That would indignant rend
  The northland from the south?
  
  Wherefore?
  
  to what good end?
  
  Boston Bay and Bunker Hill
  Would serve things still; —
  Things are of the snake.
  
  The horseman serves the horse,
  The neat-herd serves the neat,
  The merchant serves the purse,
  The eater serves his meat;
  'T is the day of the chattel
  Web to weave, and corn to grind;
  Things are in the saddle,
  And ride mankind.
  
  There are two laws discrete,
  Not reconciled,—
  Law for man, and law for thing;
  The last builds town and fleet,
  But it runs wild,
  And doth the man unking.
  
  'T is fit the forest fall,
  The steep be graded,
  The mountain tunnelled,
  The sand shaded,
  The orchard planted,
  The glebe tilled,
  The prairie granted,
  The steamer built.
  
  Let man serve law for man;
  Live for friendship, live for love,
  For truth's and harmony's behoof;
  The state may follow how it can,
  As Olympus follows Jove.
  
  Yet do not I implore
  The wrinkled shopman to my sounding woods,
  Nor bid the unwilling senator
  Ask votes of thrushes in the solitudes.
  
  Every one to his chosen work; —
  Foolish hands may mix and mar;
  Wise and sure the issues are.
  
  Round they roll till dark is light,
  Sex to sex, and even to odd; —
  The over-god
  Who marries Right to Might,
  Who peoples, unpeoples, —
  He who exterminates
  Races by stronger races,
  Black by white faces, —
  Knows to bring honey
  Out of the lion;
  Grafts gentlest scion
  On pirate and Turk.
  
  The Cossack eats Poland,
  Like stolen fruit;
  Her last noble is ruined,
  Her last poet mute;
  Straight into double band
  The victors divide;
  Half for freedom strike and stand; —
  The astonished Muse finds thousands at her side.

• Ode to Beauty Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Who gave thee, O Beauty,
  The keys of this breast,—
  Too credulous lover
  Of blest and unblest?
  
  Say, when in lapsed ages
  Thee knew I of old;
  Or what was the service
  For which I was sold?
  
  When first my eyes saw thee,
  I found me thy thrall,
  By magical drawings,
  Sweet tyrant of all!
  I drank at thy fountain
  False waters of thirst;
  Thou intimate stranger,
  Thou latest and first!
  Thy dangerous glances
  Make women of men;
  New-born, we are melting
  Into nature again.
  
  Lavish, lavish promiser,
  Nigh persuading gods to err!
  Guest of million painted forms,
  Which in turn thy glory warms!
  The frailest leaf, the mossy bark,
  The acorn’s cup, the raindrop’s arc,
  The swinging spider’s silver line,
  The ruby of the drop of wine,
  The shining pebble of the pond,
  Thou inscribest with a bond
  In thy momentary play,
  Would bankrupt nature to repay.
  
  Ah, what avails it
  To hide or to shun
  Whom the Infinite One
  Hath granted his throne?
  
  The heaven high over
  Is the deep’s lover;
  The sun and sea,
  Informed by thee,
  Before me run
  And draw me on,
  Yet fly me still,
  As Fate refuses
  To me the heart Fate for me chooses.
  
  Is it that my opulent soul
  Was mingled from the generous whole;
  Sea-valleys and the deep of skies
  Furnished several supplies;
  And the sands whereof I’m made
  Draw me to them, self-betrayed?
  
  I turn the proud portfolio
  Which holds the grand designs
  Of Salvator, of Guercino,
  And Piranesi’s lines.
  
  I hear the lofty paeans
  Of the masters of the shell,
  Who heard the starry music
  And recount the numbers well;
  Olympian bards who sung
  Divine Ideas below,
  Which always find us young
  And always keep us so.
  
  Oft in streets or humblest places,
  I detect far-wandered graces,
  Which, from Eden wide astray,
  In lowly homes have lost their way.
  
  Thee gliding through the sea of form,
  Like the lightning through the storm,
  Somewhat not to be possessed,
  Somewhat not to be caressed,
  No feet so fleet could ever find,
  No perfect form could ever bind.
  
  Thou eternal fugitive,
  Hovering over all that live,
  Quick and skilful to inspire
  Sweet, extravagant desire,
  Starry space and lily-bell
  Filling with thy roseate smell,
  Wilt not give the lips to taste
  Of the nectar which thou hast.
  
  All that’s good and great with thee
  Works in close conspiracy;
  Thou hast bribed the dark and lonely
  To report thy features only,
  And the cold and purple morning
  Itself with thoughts of thee adorning;
  The leafy dell, the city mart,
  Equal trophies of thine art;
  E’en the flowing azure air
  Thou hast touched for my despair;
  And, if I languish into dreams,
  Again I meet the ardent beams.
  
  Queen of things! I dare not die
  In Being’s deeps past ear and eye;
  Lest there I find the same deceiver.
  
  And be the sport of Fate forever.
  
  Dread Power, but dear! if God thou be,
  Unmake me quite, or give thyself to me!

• Parks and ponds Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Parks and ponds are good by day;
  I do not delight
  In black acres of the night,
  Nor my unseasoned step disturbs
  The sleeps of trees or dreams of herbs.

• The Snow-Storm Read Poem Log in to favourite

  Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
  Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
  Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
  Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
  And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.
  
  The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
  Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
  Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
  In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
  
  Come see the north wind's masonry.
  
  Out of an unseen quarry evermore
  Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
  Curves his white bastions with projected roof
  Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
  
  Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
  So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
  For number or proportion.
  
  Mockingly,
  On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
  A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
  Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
  Maugre the farmer's sighs; and, at the gate,
  A tapering turret overtops the work.
  
  And when his hours are numbered, and the world
  Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
  Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
  To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
  Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
  The frolic architecture of the snow.