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Go, speed the stars of Thought On to their shining goals:— The sower scatters broad his seed, The wheat thou strew'st be souls.
I grieve that better souls than mine Docile read my measured line: High destined youths and holy maids Hallow these my orchard shades; Environ me and me baptize With light that streams from gracious eyes. I dare not be beloved and known, I ungrateful, I alone.
Ever find me dim regards, Love of ladies, love of bards, Marked forbearance, compliments, Tokens of benevolence. What then, can I love myself? Fame is profitless as pelf, A good in Nature not allowed They love me, as I love a cloud Sailing falsely in the sphere, Hated mist if it come near.
For thought, and not praise; Thought is the wages For which I sell days, Will gladly sell ages And willing grow old Deaf, and dumb, and blind, and cold, Melting matter into dreams, Panoramas which I saw And whatever glows or seems Into substance, into Law.
For Fancy's gift Can mountains lift; The Muse can knit What is past, what is done, With the web that's just begun; Making free with time and size, Dwindles here, there magnifies, Swells a rain-drop to a tun; So to repeat No word or feat Crowds in a day the sum of ages, And blushing Love outwits the sages.
Try the might the Muse affords And the balm of thoughtful words; Bring music to the desolate; Hang roses on the stony fate.
But over all his crowning grace, Wherefor thanks God his daily praise, Is the purging of his eye To see the people of the sky: From blue mount and headland dim Friendly hands stretch forth to him, Him they beckon, him advise Of heavenlier prosperities And a more excelling grace And a truer bosom-glow Than the wine-fed feasters know. They turn his heart from lovely maids, And make the darlings of the earth Swainish, coarse and nothing worth: Teach him gladly to postpone Pleasures to another stage Beyond the scope of human age, Freely as task at eve undone Waits unblamed to-morrow's sun.
By thoughts I lead Bards to say what nations need; What imports, what irks and what behooves, Framed afar as Fates and Loves.
And as the light divides the dark Through with living swords, So shall thou pierce the distant age With adamantine words.
I framed his tongue to music, I armed his hand with skill, I moulded his face to beauty And his heart the throne of Will.
For every God Obeys the hymn, obeys the ode.
For art, for music over-thrilled, The wine-cup shakes, the wine is spilled.
Hold of the Maker, not the Made; Sit with the Cause, or grim or glad.
That book is good Which puts me in a working mood. Unless to Thought is added Will, Apollo is an imbecile. What parts, what gems, what colors shine,— Ah, but I miss the grand design.
Like vaulters in a circus round Who leap from horse to horse, but never touch the ground.
For Genius made his cabin wide, And Love led Gods therein to bide.
The atom displaces all atoms beside, And Genius unspheres all souls that abide.
To transmute crime to wisdom, so to stem The vice of Japhet by the thought of Shem.
He could condense cerulean ether Into the very best sole-leather.
Forbore the ant-hill, shunned to tread, In mercy, on one little head.
I have no brothers and no peers, And the dearest interferes: When I would spend a lonely day, Sun and moon are in my way.
The brook sings on, but sings in vain Wanting the echo in my brain.
He planted where the deluge ploughed. His hired hands were wind and cloud; His eyes detect the Gods concealed In the hummock of the field.
For what need I of book or priest, Or sibyl from the mummied East, When every star is Bethlehem star? I count as many as there are Cinquefoils or violets in the grass, So many saints and saviors, So many high behaviors Salute the bard who is alive And only sees what he doth give.
Coin the day-dawn into lines In which its proper splendor shines; Coin the moonlight into verse Which all its marvel shall rehearse, Chasing with words fast-flowing things; nor try To plant thy shrivelled pedantry On the shoulders of the sky.
Ah, not to me those dreams belong! A better voice peals through my song.
The Muse's hill by Fear is guarded, A bolder foot is still rewarded.
His instant thought a poet spoke, And filled the age his fame; An inch of ground the lightning strook But lit the sky with flame.
If bright the sun, he tarries, All day his song is heard; And when he goes he carries No more baggage than a bird.
The Asmodean feat is mine, To spin my sand-heap into twine.
Slighted Minerva's learned tongue, But leaped with joy when on the wind The shell of Clio rung.
FRAGMENTS ON NATURE AND LIFE
NATURE
The patient Pan, Drunken with nectar, Sleeps or feigns slumber, Drowsily humming Music to the march of time. This poor tooting, creaking cricket, Pan, half asleep, rolling over His great body in the grass, Tooting, creaking, Feigns to sleep, sleeping never; 'T is his manner, Well he knows his own affair, Piling mountain chains of phlegm On the nervous brain of man, As he holds down central fires Under Alps and Andes cold; Haply else we could not live, Life would be too wild an ode.
Come search the wood for flowers,— Wild tea and wild pea, Grapevine and succory, Coreopsis And liatris, Flaunting in their bowers; Grass with green flag half-mast high, Succory to match the sky, Columbine with horn of honey, Scented fern and agrimony; Forest full of essences Fit for fairy presences, Peppermint and sassafras, Sweet fern, mint and vernal grass, Panax, black birch, sugar maple, Sweet and scent for Dian's table, Elder-blow, sarsaparilla, Wild rose, lily, dry vanilla,— Spices in the plants that run To bring their first fruits to the sun. Earliest heats that follow frore Nerved leaf of hellebore, Sweet willow, checkerberry red, With its savory leaf for bread. Silver birch and black With the selfsame spice Found in polygala root and rind, Sassafras, fern, benzoeine, Mouse-ear, cowslip, wintergreen, Which by aroma may compel The frost to spare, what scents so well.
Where the fungus broad and red Lifts its head, Like poisoned loaf of elfin bread, Where the aster grew With the social goldenrod, In a chapel, which the dew Made beautiful for God:— O what would Nature say? She spared no speech to-day: The fungus and the bulrush spoke, Answered the pine-tree and the oak, The wizard South blew down the glen, Filled the straits and filled the wide, Each maple leaf turned up its silver side. All things shine in his smoky ray, And all we see are pictures high; Many a high hillside, While oaks of pride Climb to their tops, And boys run out upon their leafy ropes. The maple street In the houseless wood, Voices followed after, Every shrub and grape leaf Rang with fairy laughter. I have heard them fall Like the strain of all King Oberon's minstrelsy. Would hear the everlasting And know the only strong? You must worship fasting, You must listen long. Words of the air Which birds of the air Carry aloft, below, around, To the isles of the deep, To the snow-capped steep, To the thundercloud.
For Nature, true and like in every place, Will hint her secret in a garden patch, Or in lone corners of a doleful heath, As in the Andes watched by fleets at sea, Or the sky-piercing horns of Himmaleh; And, when I would recall the scenes I dreamed On Adirondac steeps, I know Small need have I of Turner or Daguerre, Assured to find the token once again In silver lakes that unexhausted gleam And peaceful woods beside my cottage door.
What all the books of ages paint, I have. What prayers and dreams of youthful genius feign, I daily dwell in, and am not so blind But I can see the elastic tent of day Belike has wider hospitality Than my few needs exhaust, and bids me read The quaint devices on its mornings gay. Yet Nature will not be in full possessed, And they who truliest love her, heralds are And harbingers of a majestic race, Who, having more absorbed, more largely yield, And walk on earth as the sun walks in the sphere.
But never yet the man was found Who could the mystery expound, Though Adam, born when oaks were young, Endured, the Bible says, as long; But when at last the patriarch died The Gordian noose was still untied. He left, though goodly centuries old, Meek Nature's secret still untold.
Atom from atom yawns as far As moon from earth, or star from star.
When all their blooms the meadows flaunt To deck the morning of the year, Why tinge thy lustres jubilant With forecast or with fear?
Teach me your mood, O patient stars! Who climb each night the ancient sky, Leaving on space no shade, no scars, No trace of age, no fear to die.
The sun athwart the cloud thought it no sin To use my land to put his rainbows in.
For joy and beauty planted it, With faerie gardens cheered, And boding Fancy haunted it With men and women weird.
What central flowing forces, say, Make up thy splendor, matchless day?
Day by day for her darlings to her much she added more; In her hundred-gated Thebes every chamber was a door, A door to something grander,—loftier walls, and vaster floor.
She paints with white and red the moors To draw the nations out of doors.
A score of airy miles will smooth Rough Monadnoc to a gem.
THE EARTH
Our eyeless bark sails free Though with boom and spar Andes, Alp or Himmalee, Strikes never moon or star.
THE HEAVENS
Wisp and meteor nightly falling, But the Stars of God remain.
TRANSITION
See yonder leafless trees against the sky, How they diffuse themselves into the air, And, ever subdividing, separate Limbs into branches, branches into twigs. As if they loved the element, and hasted To dissipate their being into it.
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.
In Walden wood the chickadee Runs round the pine and maple tree Intent on insect slaughter: O tufted entomologist! Devour as many as you list, Then drink in Walden water.
The low December vault in June be lifted high, And largest clouds be flakes of down in that enormous sky.
THE GARDEN
Many things the garden shows, And pleased I stray From tree to tree Watching the white pear-bloom, Bee-infested quince or plum. I could walk days, years, away Till the slow ripening, secular tree Had reached its fruiting-time, Nor think it long.
Solar insect on the wing In the garden murmuring, Soothing with thy summer horn Swains by winter pinched and worn.
BIRDS
Darlings of children and of bard, Perfect kinds by vice unmarred, All of worth and beauty set Gems in Nature's cabinet; These the fables she esteems Reality most like to dreams. Welcome back, you little nations, Far-travelled in the south plantations; Bring your music and rhythmic flight, Your colors for our eyes' delight: Freely nestle in our roof, Weave your chamber weatherproof; And your enchanting manners bring And your autumnal gathering. Exchange in conclave general Greetings kind to each and all, Conscious each of duty done And unstained as the sun.
WATER
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.
NAHANT
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.
SUNRISE
Would you know what joy is hid In our green Musketaquid, And for travelled eyes what charms Draw us to these meadow farms, Come and I will show you all Makes each day a festival. Stand upon this pasture hill, Face the eastern star until The slow eye of heaven shall show The world above, the world below.
Behold the miracle! Thou saw'st but now the twilight sad And stood beneath the firmament, A watchman in a dark gray tent, Waiting till God create the earth,— Behold the new majestic birth! The mottled clouds, like scraps of wool, Steeped in the light are beautiful. What majestic stillness broods Over these colored solitudes. Sleeps the vast East in pleased peace, Up the far mountain walls the streams increase Inundating the heaven With spouting streams and waves of light Which round the floating isles unite:— See the world below Baptized with the pure element, A clear and glorious firmament Touched with life by every beam. I share the good with every flower, I drink the nectar of the hour:— This is not the ancient earth Whereof old chronicles relate The tragic tales of crime and fate; But rather, like its beads of dew And dew-bent violets, fresh and new, An exhalation of the time.
* * *
NIGHT IN JUNE
I left my dreary page and sallied forth, Received the fair inscriptions of the night; The moon was making amber of the world, Glittered with silver every cottage pane, The trees were rich, yet ominous with gloom. The meadows broad From ferns and grapes and from the folded flowers Sent a nocturnal fragrance; harlot flies Flashed their small fires in air, or held their court In fairy groves of herds-grass.
He lives not who can refuse me; All my force saith, Come and use me: A gleam of sun, a summer rain, And all the zone is green again.
Seems, though the soft sheen all enchants, Cheers the rough crag and mournful dell, As if on such stern forms and haunts A wintry storm more fitly fell.
Put in, drive home the sightless wedges And split to flakes the crystal ledges.
MAIA
Illusion works impenetrable, Weaving webs innumerable, Her gay pictures never fail, Crowds each on other, veil on veil, Charmer who will be believed By man who thirsts to be deceived.
Illusions like the tints of pearl, Or changing colors of the sky, Or ribbons of a dancing girl That mend her beauty to the eye.
The cold gray down upon the quinces lieth And the poor spinners weave their webs thereon To share the sunshine that so spicy is.
Samson stark, at Dagon's knee, Gropes for columns strong as he; When his ringlets grew and curled, Groped for axle of the world.
But Nature whistled with all her winds, Did as she pleased and went her way.
LIFE
A train of gay and clouded days Dappled with joy and grief and praise, Beauty to fire us, saints to save, Escort us to a little grave.
No fate, save by the victim's fault, is low, For God hath writ all dooms magnificent, So guilt not traverses his tender will.
Around the man who seeks a noble end, Not angels but divinities attend.
From high to higher forces The scale of power uprears, The heroes on their horses, The gods upon their spheres.
This shining moment is an edifice Which the Omnipotent cannot rebuild.
Roomy Eternity Casts her schemes rarely, And an aeon allows For each quality and part Of the multitudinous And many-chambered heart.
The beggar begs by God's command, And gifts awake when givers sleep, Swords cannot cut the giving hand Nor stab the love that orphans keep.
In the chamber, on the stairs, Lurking dumb, Go and come Lemurs and Lars.
Such another peerless queen Only could her mirror show.
Easy to match what others do, Perform the feat as well as they; Hard to out-do the brave, the true, And find a loftier way: The school decays, the learning spoils Because of the sons of wine; How snatch the stripling from their toils?— Yet can one ray of truth divine The blaze of revellers' feasts outshine.
Of all wit's uses the main one Is to live well with who has none.
The tongue is prone to lose the way, Not so the pen, for in a letter We have not better things to say, But surely say them better.
She walked in flowers around my field As June herself around the sphere.
Friends to me are frozen wine; I wait the sun on them should shine.
You shall not love me for what daily spends; You shall not know me in the noisy street, Where I, as others, follow petty ends; Nor when in fair saloons we chance to meet; Nor when I'm jaded, sick, anxious or mean. But love me then and only, when you know Me for the channel of the rivers of God From deep ideal fontal heavens that flow.
To and fro the Genius flies, A light which plays and hovers Over the maiden's head And dips sometimes as low as to her eyes. Of her faults I take no note, Fault and folly are not mine; Comes the Genius,—all's forgot, Replunged again into that upper sphere He scatters wide and wild its lustres here.
Love Asks nought his brother cannot give; Asks nothing, but does all receive. Love calls not to his aid events; He to his wants can well suffice: Asks not of others soft consents, Nor kind occasion without eyes; Nor plots to ope or bolt a gate, Nor heeds Condition's iron walls,— Where he goes, goes before him Fate; Whom he uniteth, God installs; Instant and perfect his access To the dear object of his thought, Though foes and land and seas between Himself and his love intervene.
The brave Empedocles, defying fools, Pronounced the word that mortals hate to hear— "I am divine, I am not mortal made; I am superior to my human weeds." Not Sense but Reason is the Judge of truth; Reason's twofold, part human, part divine; That human part may be described and taught, The other portion language cannot speak.
Tell men what they knew before; Paint the prospect from their door.
Him strong Genius urged to roam, Stronger Custom brought him home.
That each should in his house abide. Therefore was the world so wide.
Thou shalt make thy house The temple of a nation's vows. Spirits of a higher strain Who sought thee once shall seek again. I detected many a god Forth already on the road, Ancestors of beauty come In thy breast to make a home.
The archangel Hope Looks to the azure cope, Waits through dark ages for the morn, Defeated day by day, but unto victory born.
As the drop feeds its fated flower, As finds its Alp the snowy shower, Child of the omnific Need, Hurled into life to do a deed, Man drinks the water, drinks the light.
Ever the Rock of Ages melts Into the mineral air, To be the quarry whence to build Thought and its mansions fair.
Go if thou wilt, ambrosial flower, Go match thee with thy seeming peers; I will wait Heaven's perfect hour Through the innumerable years.
Yes, sometimes to the sorrow-stricken Shall his own sorrow seem impertinent, A thing that takes no more root in the world Than doth the traveller's shadow on the rock.
But if thou do thy best, Without remission, without rest, And invite the sunbeam, And abhor to feign or seem Even to those who thee should love And thy behavior approve; If thou go in thine own likeness, Be it health, or be it sickness; If thou go as thy father's son, If thou wear no mask or lie, Dealing purely and nakedly,—
* * *
Ascending thorough just degrees To a consummate holiness, As angel blind to trespass done, And bleaching all souls like the sun.
From the stores of eldest matter, The deep-eyed flame, obedient water, Transparent air, all-feeding earth, He took the flower of all their worth, And, best with best in sweet consent, Combined a new temperament.
REX
The bard and mystic held me for their own, I filled the dream of sad, poetic maids, I took the friendly noble by the hand, I was the trustee of the hand-cart man, The brother of the fisher, porter, swain, And these from the crowd's edge well pleased beheld The service done to me as done to them.
With the key of the secret he marches faster, From strength to strength, and for night brings day; While classes or tribes, too weak to master The flowing conditions of life, give way.
SUUM CUIQUE
Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill? Pay every debt as if God wrote the bill.
If curses be the wage of love, Hide in thy skies, thou fruitless Jove, Not to be named: It is clear Why the gods will not appear; They are ashamed.
When wrath and terror changed Jove's regal port, And the rash-leaping thunderbolt fell short.
Shun passion, fold the hands of thrift, Sit still and Truth is near: Suddenly it will uplift Your eyelids to the sphere: Wait a little, you shall see The portraiture of things to be.
The rules to men made evident By Him who built the day, The columns of the firmament Not firmer based than they.
On bravely through the sunshine and the showers! Time hath his work to do and we have ours.
THE BOHEMIAN HYMN
In many forms we try To utter God's infinity, But the boundless hath no form, And the Universal Friend Doth as far transcend An angel as a worm.
The great Idea baffles wit, Language falters under it, It leaves the learned in the lurch; Nor art, nor power, nor toil can find The measure of the eternal Mind, Nor hymn, nor prayer, nor church.
GRACE
How much, preventing God, how much I owe To the defences thou hast round me set; Example, custom, fear, occasion 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.
INSIGHT
Power that by obedience grows, Knowledge which its source not knows, Wave which severs whom it bears From the things which he compares, Adding wings through things to range, To his own blood harsh and strange.
PAN
O what are heroes, prophets, men, But pipes through which the breath of Pan doth blow A momentary music. Being's tide Swells hitherward, and myriads of forms Live, robed with beauty, painted by the sun; Their dust, pervaded by the nerves of God, Throbs with an overmastering energy Knowing and doing. Ebbs the tide, they lie White hollow shells upon the desert shore, But not the less the eternal wave rolls on To animate new millions, and exhale Races and planets, its enchanted foam.
MONADNOC FROM AFAR
Dark flower of Cheshire garden, Red evening duly dyes Thy sombre head with rosy hues To fix far-gazing eyes. Well the Planter knew how strongly Works thy form on human thought; I muse what secret purpose had he To draw all fancies to this spot.
SEPTEMBER
In the turbulent beauty Of a gusty Autumn day, Poet on a sunny headland Sighed his soul away.
Farms the sunny landscape dappled, Swandown clouds dappled the farms, Cattle lowed in mellow distance Where far oaks outstretched their arms.
Sudden gusts came full of meaning, All too much to him they said, Oh, south winds have long memories, Of that be none afraid.
I cannot tell rude listeners Half the tell-tale South-wind said,— 'T would bring the blushes of yon maples To a man and to a maid.
EROS
They put their finger on their lip, The Powers above: The seas their islands clip, The moons in ocean dip, They love, but name not love.
OCTOBER
October woods wherein The boy's dream comes to pass, And Nature squanders on the boy her pomp, And crowns him with a more than royal crown, And unimagined splendor waits his steps. The gazing urchin walks through tents of gold, Through crimson chambers, porphyry and pearl, Pavilion on pavilion, garlanded, Incensed and starred with lights and airs and shapes, Color and sound, music to eye and ear, Beyond the best conceit of pomp or power.
PETER'S FIELD
[Knows he who tills this lonely field To reap its scanty corn, What mystic fruit his acres yield At midnight and at morn?]
That field by spirits bad and good, By Hell and Heaven is haunted, And every rood in the hemlock wood I know is ground enchanted.
[In the long sunny afternoon The plain was full of ghosts: I wandered up, I wandered down, Beset by pensive hosts.]
For in those lonely grounds the sun Shines not as on the town, In nearer arcs his journeys run, And nearer stoops the moon.
There in a moment I have seen The buried Past arise; The fields of Thessaly grew green, Old gods forsook the skies.
I cannot publish in my rhyme What pranks the greenwood played; It was the Carnival of time, And Ages went or stayed.
To me that spectral nook appeared The mustering Day of Doom, And round me swarmed in shadowy troop Things past and things to come.
The darkness haunteth me elsewhere; There I am full of light; In every whispering leaf I hear More sense than sages write.
Underwoods were full of pleasance, All to each in kindness bend, And every flower made obeisance As a man unto his friend.
Far seen, the river glides below, Tossing one sparkle to the eyes: I catch thy meaning, wizard wave; The River of my Life replies.
MUSIC
Let me go where'er I will, I hear a sky-born music still: It sounds from all things old, It sounds from all things young, From all that's fair, from all that's foul, Peals out a cheerful song.
It is not only in the rose, It is not only in the bird, Not only where the rainbow glows, Nor in the song of woman heard, But in the darkest, meanest things There alway, alway something sings.
'T is not in the high stars alone, Nor in the cup of budding flowers, Nor in the redbreast's mellow tone, Nor in the bow that smiles in showers, But in the mud and scum of things There alway, alway something sings.
THE WALK
A Queen rejoices in her peers, And wary Nature knows her own By court and city, dale and down, And like a lover volunteers, And to her son will treasures more And more to purpose freely pour In one wood walk, than learned men Can find with glass in ten times ten.
COSMOS
Who saw the hid beginnings When Chaos and Order strove, Or who can date the morning. The purple flaming of love?
I saw the hid beginnings When Chaos and Order strove, And I can date the morning prime And purple flame of love.
Song breathed from all the forest, The total air was fame; It seemed the world was all torches That suddenly caught the flame.
* * *
Is there never a retroscope mirror In the realms and corners of space That can give us a glimpse of the battle And the soldiers face to face?
Sit here on the basalt courses Where twisted hills betray The seat of the world-old Forces Who wrestled here on a day.
* * *
When the purple flame shoots up, And Love ascends his throne, I cannot hear your songs, O birds, For the witchery of my own.
And every human heart Still keeps that golden day And rings the bells of jubilee On its own First of May.
THE MIRACLE
I have trod this path a hundred times With idle footsteps, crooning rhymes. I know each nest and web-worm's tent, The fox-hole which the woodchucks rent, Maple and oak, the old Divan Self-planted twice, like the banian. I know not why I came again Unless to learn it ten times ten. To read the sense the woods impart You must bring the throbbing heart. Love is aye the counterforce,— Terror and Hope and wild Remorse, Newest knowledge, fiery thought, Or Duty to grand purpose wrought. Wandering yester morn the brake, I reached this heath beside the lake, And oh, the wonder of the power, The deeper secret of the hour! Nature, the supplement of man, His hidden sense interpret can;— What friend to friend cannot convey Shall the dumb bird instructed say. Passing yonder oak, I heard Sharp accents of my woodland bird; I watched the singer with delight,— But mark what changed my joy to fright,— When that bird sang, I gave the theme; That wood-bird sang my last night's dream, A brown wren was the Daniel That pierced my trance its drift to tell, Knew my quarrel, how and why, Published it to lake and sky, Told every word and syllable In his flippant chirping babble, All my wrath and all my shames, Nay, God is witness, gave the names.
THE WATERFALL
A patch of meadow upland Reached by a mile of road, Soothed by the voice of waters, With birds and flowers bestowed.
Hither I come for strength Which well it can supply, For Love draws might from terrene force And potencies of sky.
The tremulous battery Earth Responds to the touch of man; It thrills to the antipodes, From Boston to Japan.
The planets' child the planet knows And to his joy replies; To the lark's trill unfolds the rose, Clouds flush their gayest dyes.
When Ali prayed and loved Where Syrian waters roll, Upward the ninth heaven thrilled and moved; At the tread of the jubilant soul.
WALDEN
In my garden three ways meet, Thrice the spot is blest; Hermit-thrush comes there to build, Carrier-doves to nest.
There broad-armed oaks, the copses' maze, The cold sea-wind detain; Here sultry Summer overstays When Autumn chills the plain.
Self-sown my stately garden grows; The winds and wind-blown seed, Cold April rain and colder snows My hedges plant and feed.
From mountains far and valleys near The harvests sown to-day Thrive in all weathers without fear,— Wild planters, plant away!
In cities high the careful crowds Of woe-worn mortals darkling go, But in these sunny solitudes My quiet roses blow.
Methought the sky looked scornful down On all was base in man, And airy tongues did taunt the town, 'Achieve our peace who can!'
What need I holier dew Than Walden's haunted wave, Distilled from heaven's alembic blue, Steeped in each forest cave?
[If Thought unlock her mysteries, If Friendship on me smile, I walk in marble galleries, I talk with kings the while.]
How drearily in College hall The Doctor stretched the hours, But in each pause we heard the call Of robins out of doors.
The air is wise, the wind thinks well, And all through which it blows, If plants or brain, if egg or shell, Or bird or biped knows;
And oft at home 'mid tasks I heed, I heed how wears the day; We must not halt while fiercely speed The spans of life away.
What boots it here of Thebes or Rome Or lands of Eastern day? In forests I am still at home And there I cannot stray.
THE ENCHANTER
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 flowers 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 Virtue's starlike meed And gives persuasion to a gentle deed.
WRITTEN IN A VOLUME OF GOETHE
Six thankful weeks,—and let it be A meter of prosperity,— In my coat I bore this book, And seldom therein could I look, For I had too much to think, Heaven and earth to eat and drink. Is he hapless who can spare In his plenty things so rare?
RICHES
Have ye seen the caterpillar Foully warking in his nest? 'T is the poor man getting siller, Without cleanness, without rest.
Have ye seen the butterfly In braw claithing drest? 'T is the poor man gotten rich, In rings and painted vest.
The poor man crawls in web of rags And sore bested with woes. But when he flees on riches' wings, He laugheth at his foes.
PHILOSOPHER
Philosophers are lined with eyes within, And, being so, the sage unmakes the man. In love, he cannot therefore cease his trade; Scarce the first blush has overspread his cheek, He feels it, introverts his learned eye To catch the unconscious heart in the very act.
His mother died,—the only friend he had,— Some tears escaped, but his philosophy Couched like a cat sat watching close behind And throttled all his passion. Is't not like That devil-spider that devours her mate Scarce freed from her embraces?
INTELLECT
Gravely it broods apart on joy, And, truth to tell, amused by pain.
LIMITS
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.
INSCRIPTION FOR A WELL IN MEMORY OF THE MARTYRS OF THE WAR
Fall, stream, from Heaven to bless; return as well; So did our sons; Heaven met them as they fell.
THE EXILE
(AFTER TALIESSIN)
The heavy blue chain Of the boundless main Didst thou, just man, endure.
I have an arrow that will find its mark, A mastiff that will bite without a hark.
* * * * *
VI
POEMS OF YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD
1823-1834
* * * * *
THE BELL
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.
1823.
THOUGHT
I am not poor, but I am proud, Of one inalienable right, Above the envy of the crowd,— Thought's holy light.
Better it is than gems or gold, And oh! it cannot die, But thought will glow when the sun grows cold, And mix with Deity.
BOSTON, 1823.
PRAYER
When success exalts thy lot, God for thy virtue lays a plot: And all thy life is for thy own, Then for mankind's instruction shown; And though thy knees were never bent, To Heaven thy hourly prayers are sent, And whether formed for good or ill, Are registered and answered still.
1826 [?].
I bear in youth the sad infirmities That use to undo the limb and sense of age; It hath pleased Heaven to break the dream of bliss Which lit my onward way with bright presage, And my unserviceable limbs forego. The sweet delight I found in fields and farms, On windy hills, whose tops with morning glow, And lakes, smooth mirrors of Aurora's charms. Yet I think on them in the silent night, Still breaks that morn, though dim, to Memory's eye, And the firm soul does the pale train defy Of grim Disease, that would her peace affright. Please God, I'll wrap me in mine innocence, And bid each awful Muse drive the damned harpies hence.
CAMBRIDGE, 1827.
Be of good cheer, brave spirit; steadfastly Serve that low whisper thou hast served; for know, God hath a select family of sons Now scattered wide thro' earth, and each alone, Who are thy spiritual kindred, and each one By constant service to, that inward law, Is weaving the sublime proportions Of a true monarch's soul. Beauty and strength, The riches of a spotless memory, The eloquence of truth, the wisdom got By searching of a clear and loving eye That seeth as God seeth. These are their gifts, And Time, who keeps God's word, brings on the day To seal the marriage of these minds with thine, Thine everlasting lovers. Ye shall be The salt of all the elements, world of the world.
TO-DAY
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.
1824.
FAME
Ah Fate, cannot a man Be wise without a beard? East, West, from Beer to Dan, Say, was it never heard That wisdom might in youth be gotten, Or wit be ripe before 't was rotten?
He pays too high a price For knowledge and for fame Who sells his sinews to be wise, His teeth and bones to buy a name, And crawls through life a paralytic To earn the praise of bard and critic.
Were it not better done, To dine and sleep through forty years; Be loved by few; be feared by none; Laugh life away; have wine for tears; And take the mortal leap undaunted, Content that all we asked was granted?
But Fate will not permit The seed of gods to die, Nor suffer sense to win from wit Its guerdon in the sky, Nor let us hide, whate'er our pleasure, The world's light underneath a measure.
Go then, sad youth, and shine; Go, sacrifice to Fame; Put youth, joy, health upon the shrine, And life to fan the flame; Being for Seeming bravely barter And die to Fame a happy martyr.
1824.
THE SUMMONS
A sterner errand to the silken troop Has quenched the uneasy blush that warmed my cheek; I am commissioned in my day of joy To leave my woods and streams and the sweet sloth Of prayer and song that were my dear delight, To leave the rudeness of my woodland life, Sweet twilight walks and midnight solitude And kind acquaintance with the morning stars And the glad hey-day of my household hours, The innocent mirth which sweetens daily bread, Railing in love to those who rail again, By mind's industry sharpening the love of life— Books, Muses, Study, fireside, friends and love, I loved ye with true love, so fare ye well!
I was a boy; boyhood slid gayly by And the impatient years that trod on it Taught me new lessons in the lore of life. I've learned the sum of that sad history All woman-born do know, that hoped-for days, Days that come dancing on fraught with delights, Dash our blown hopes as they limp heavily by. But I, the bantling of a country Muse, Abandon all those toys with speed to obey The King whose meek ambassador I go.
1826.
THE RIVER
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.
CONCORD, June, 1827.
GOOD HOPE
The cup of life is not so shallow That we have drained the best, That all the wine at once we swallow And lees make all the rest.
Maids of as soft a bloom shall marry As Hymen yet hath blessed, And fairer forms are in the quarry Than Phidias released.
1827.
LINES TO ELLEN
Tell me, maiden, dost thou use Thyself thro' Nature to diffuse? All the angles of the coast Were tenanted by thy sweet ghost, Bore thy colors every flower, Thine each leaf and berry bore; All wore thy badges and thy favors In their scent or in their savors, Every moth with painted wing, Every bird in carolling, The wood-boughs with thy manners waved, The rocks uphold thy name engraved, The sod throbbed friendly to my feet, And the sweet air with thee was sweet. The saffron cloud that floated warm Studied thy motion, took thy form, And in his airy road benign Recalled thy skill in bold design, Or seemed to use his privilege To gaze o'er the horizon's edge, To search where now thy beauty glowed, Or made what other purlieus proud.
1829.
SECURITY
Though her eye seek other forms And a glad delight below, Yet the love the world that warms Bids for me her bosom glow.
She must love me till she find Another heart as large and true. Her soul is frank as the ocean wind, And the world has only two.
If Nature hold another heart That knows a purer flame than me, I too therein could challenge part And learn of love a new degree.
1829.
A dull uncertain brain, But gifted yet to know That God has cherubim who go Singing an immortal strain, Immortal here below. I know the mighty bards, I listen when they sing, And now I know The secret store Which these explore When they with torch of genius pierce The tenfold clouds that cover The riches of the universe From God's adoring lover. And if to me it is not given To fetch one ingot thence Of the unfading gold of Heaven His merchants may dispense, Yet well I know the royal mine, And know the sparkle of its ore, Know Heaven's truth from lies that shine— Explored they teach us to explore.
1831.
A MOUNTAIN GRAVE
Why fear to die And let thy body lie Under the flowers of June, Thy body food For the ground-worms' brood And thy grave smiled on by the visiting moon.
Amid great Nature's halls Girt in by mountain walls And washed with waterfalls It would please me to die, Where every wind that swept my tomb Goes loaded with a free perfume Dealt out with a God's charity.
I should like to die in sweets, A hill's leaves for winding-sheets, And the searching sun to see That I am laid with decency. And the commissioned wind to sing His mighty psalm from fall to spring And annual tunes commemorate Of Nature's child the common fate.
WILLIAMSTOWN, VERMONT, 1 June, 1831.
A LETTER
Dear brother, would you know the life, Please God, that I would lead? On the first wheels that quit this weary town Over yon western bridges I would ride And with a cheerful benison forsake Each street and spire and roof, incontinent. Then would I seek where God might guide my steps, Deep in a woodland tract, a sunny farm, Amid the mountain counties, Hants, Franklin, Berks, Where down the rock ravine a river roars, Even from a brook, and where old woods Not tamed and cleared cumber the ground With their centennial wrecks. Find me a slope where I can feel the sun And mark the rising of the early stars. There will I bring my books,—my household gods, The reliquaries of my dead saint, and dwell In the sweet odor of her memory. Then in the uncouth solitude unlock My stock of art, plant dials in the grass, Hang in the air a bright thermometer And aim a telescope at the inviolate sun.
CHARDON ST., BOSTON, 1831.
Day by day returns The everlasting sun, Replenishing material urns With God's unspared donation; But the day of day, The orb within the mind, Creating fair and good alway, Shines not as once it shined.
* * *
Vast the realm of Being is, In the waste one nook is his; Whatsoever hap befalls In his vision's narrow walls He is here to testify.
1831.
HYMN
There is in all the sons of men A love that in the spirit dwells, That panteth after things unseen, And tidings of the future tells.
And God hath built his altar here To keep this fire of faith alive, And sent his priests in holy fear To speak the truth—for truth to strive.
And hither come the pensive train Of rich and poor, of young and old, Of ardent youth untouched by pain, Of thoughtful maids and manhood bold.
They seek a friend to speak the word Already trembling on their tongue, To touch with prophet's hand the chord Which God in human hearts hath strung.
To speak the plain reproof of sin That sounded in the soul before, And bid you let the angels in That knock at meek contrition's door.
A friend to lift the curtain up That hides from man the mortal goal, And with glad thoughts of faith and hope Surprise the exulting soul.
Sole source of light and hope assured, O touch thy servant's lips with power, So shall he speak to us the word Thyself dost give forever more.
June, 1831.
SELF-RELIANCE
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.
* * *
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.
October 9, 1832.
And when I am entombed 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.
1833.
WRITTEN IN NAPLES
We are what we are made; each following day Is the Creator of our human mould Not less than was the first; the all-wise God Gilds a few points in every several life, And as each flower upon the fresh hillside, And every colored petal of each flower, Is sketched and dyed, each with a new design, Its spot of purple, and its streak of brown, So each man's life shall have its proper lights, And a few joys, a few peculiar charms, For him round in the melancholy hours And reconcile him to the common days. Not many men see beauty in the fogs Of close low pine-woods in a river town; Yet unto me not morn's magnificence, Nor the red rainbow of a summer eve, Nor Rome, nor joyful Paris, nor the halls Of rich men blazing hospitable light, Nor wit, nor eloquence,—no, nor even the song Of any woman that is now alive,— Hath such a soul, such divine influence, Such resurrection of the happy past, As is to me when I behold the morn Ope in such law moist roadside, and beneath Peep the blue violets out of the black loam, Pathetic silent poets that sing to me Thine elegy, sweet singer, sainted wife.
March, 1833.
WRITTEN AT ROME
Alone in Rome. Why, Rome is lonely too;— Besides, you need not be alone; the soul Shall have society of its own rank. Be great, be true, and all the Scipios, The Catos, the wise patriots of Rome, Shall flock to you and tarry by your side, And comfort you with their high company. Virtue alone is sweet society, It keeps the key to all heroic hearts, And opens you a welcome in them all. You must be like them if you desire them, Scorn trifles and embrace a better aim Than wine or sleep or praise; Hunt knowledge as the lover wooes a maid, And ever in the strife of your own thoughts Obey the nobler impulse; that is Rome: That shall command a senate to your side; For there is no might in the universe That can contend with love. It reigns forever. Wait then, sad friend, wait in majestic peace The hour of heaven. Generously trust Thy fortune's web to the beneficent hand That until now has put his world in fee To thee. He watches for thee still. His love Broods over thee, and as God lives in heaven, However long thou walkest solitary, The hour of heaven shall come, the man appear.
1833.
WEBSTER
1831
Let Webster's lofty face Ever on thousands shine, A beacon set that Freedom's race Might gather omens from that radiant sign.
FROM THE PHI BETA KAPPA POEM
1834
Ill fits the abstemious Muse a crown to weave For living brows; ill fits them to receive: And yet, if virtue abrogate the law, One portrait—fact or fancy—we may draw; A form which Nature cast in the heroic mould Of them who rescued liberty of old; He, when the rising storm of party roared, Brought his great forehead to the council board, There, while hot heads perplexed with fears the state, Calm as the morn the manly patriot sate; Seemed, when at last his clarion accents broke, As if the conscience of the country spoke. Not on its base Monadnoc surer stood, Than he to common sense and common good: No mimic; from his breast his counsel drew, Believed the eloquent was aye the true; He bridged the gulf from th' alway good and wise To that within the vision of small eyes. Self-centred; when he launched the genuine word It shook or captivated all who heard, Ran from his mouth to mountains and the sea, And burned in noble hearts proverb and prophecy.
1854
Why did all manly gifts in Webster fail? He wrote on Nature's grandest brow, For Sale.
* * * * *
INDEX OF FIRST LINES
A dull uncertain brain "A new commandment," said the smiling Muse A patch of meadow upland A queen rejoices in her peers A ruddy drop of manly blood A score of airy miles will smooth A sterner errand to the silken troop A subtle chain of countless rings A train of gay and clouded days Ah Fate, cannot a man Ah, not to me those dreams belong! All day the waves assailed the rock Alone in Rome. Why, Rome is lonely too Already blushes on thy cheek And as the light divides the dark And Ellen, when the graybeard years And I behold once more And when I am entombed in my place Announced by all the trumpets of the sky Around the man who seeks a noble end Ascending thorough just degrees Askest, 'How long thou shalt stay?' As sings the pine-tree in the wind As sunbeams stream through liberal space As the drop feeds its fated flower Atom from atom yawns as far
Be of good cheer, brave spirit; steadfastly Because I was content with these poor fields Bethink, poor heart, what bitter kind of jest Blooms the laurel which belongs Boon Nature yields each day a brag which we now first behold Bring me wine, but wine which never grew Bulkeley, Hunt, Willard, Hosmer, Meriam, Flint Burly, dozing humble-bee But God said But if thou do thy best But Nature whistled with all her winds But never yet the man was found But over all his crowning grace By fate, not option, frugal Nature gave By the rude bridge that arched the flood By thoughts I lead
Can rules or tutors educate Cast the bantling on the rocks Coin the day dawn into lines
Dark flower of Cheshire garden Darlings of children and of bard Daughter of Heaven and Earth, coy Spring Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days Day by day for her darlings to her much she added more Day by day returns Day! hast thou two faces Dear brother, would you know the life Dearest, where thy shadow falls Deep in the man sits fast his fate
Each spot where tulips prank their state Each the herald is who wrote Easy to match what others do Ere he was born, the stars of fate Ever the Poet from the land Ever the Rock of Ages melts Every day brings a ship Every thought is public
Fall, stream, from Heaven to bless; return as well Farewell, ye lofty spires Flow, flow the waves hated For art, for music over-thrilled For every God For Fancy's gift For Genius made his cabin wide For joy and beauty planted it For Nature, true and like in every place For thought, and not praise For what need I of book or priest Forbore the ant-hill, shunned to tread Freedom all winged expands Friends to me are frozen wine From fall to spring, the russet acorn From high to higher forces From the stores of eldest matter From thy worth and weight the stars gravitate
Gifts of one who loved me Give all to love Give me truths Give to barrows, trays and pans Go if thou wilt, ambrosial flower Go speed the stars of Thought Go thou to thy learned task Gold and iron are good Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home Grace, Beauty and Caprice Gravely it broods apart on joy
Hark what, now loud, now low, the pining flute complains Hast thou named all the birds without a gun? Have ye seen the caterpillar He could condense cerulean ether He lives not who can refuse me He planted where the deluge ploughed He took the color of his vest He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare He who has no hands Hear what British Merlin sung Henceforth, please God, forever I forego Her passions the shy violet Her planted eye to-day controls High was her heart, and yet was well inclined Him strong Genius urged to roam His instant thought a poet spoke His tongue was framed to music Hold of the Maker, not the Made How much, preventing God, how much I owe
I, Alphonso, live and learn I am not poor but I am proud I am not wiser for my age I am the Muse who sung alway I bear in youth and sad infirmities I cannot spare water or wine I do not count the hours I spend I framed his tongue to music I grieve that better souls than mine I have an arrow that will find its mark I have no brothers and no peers I have trod this path a hundred times I heard or seemed to hear the chiding Sea I hung my verses in the wind I left my dreary page and sallied forth I like a church; I like a cowl I love thy music, mellow bell I mourn upon this battle-field I rake no coffined clay, nor publish wide I reached the middle of the mount I said to heaven that glowed above I see all human wits I serve you not, if you I follow If bright the sun, he tarries If curses be the wage of love If I could put my woods in song If my darling should depart If the red slayer think he slays Ill fits the abstemious Muse a crown to weave Illusions like the tints of pearl Illusion works impenetrable In an age of fops and toys In countless upward-striving waves In Farsistan the violet spreads In many forms we try In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes In my garden three ways meet In the chamber, on the stairs In the deep heart of man a poet dwells In the suburb, in the town In the turbulent beauty In Walden wood the chickadee It fell in the ancient periods It is time to be old
Knows he who tills this lonely field
Let me go where'er I will Let Webster's lofty face Like vaulters in a circus round Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown Long I followed happy guides Love asks nought his brother cannot give Love on his errand bound to go Love scatters oil Low and mournful be the strain
Man was made of social earth Many things the garden shows May be true what I had heard Mine and yours Mine are the night and morning Mortal mixed of middle clay
Nature centres into balls Never did sculptor's dream unfold Night-dreams trace on Memory's wall No fate, save by the victim's fault, is low Not in their houses stand the stars
October woods wherein O fair and stately maid, whose eyes O pity that I pause! O tenderly the haughty day O well for the fortunate soul O what are heroes, prophets, men Of all wit's uses the main one Of Merlin wise I learned a song Oh what is Heaven but the fellowship On a mound an Arab lay On bravely through the sunshine and the showers On prince or bride no diamond stone On two days it steads not to run from thy grave Once I wished I might rehearse One musician is sure Our eyeless bark sails free Over his head were the maple buds
Pale genius roves alone Parks and ponds are good by day Philosophers are lined with eyes within Power that by obedience grows Put in, drive home the sightless wedges
Quit the hut, frequent the palace
Right upward on the road of fame Roomy Eternity Roving, roving, as it seems Ruby wine is drunk by knaves
Samson stark at Dagon's knee See yonder leafless trees against the sky Seek not the spirit, if it hide Seems, though the soft sheen all enchants Set not thy foot on graves She is gamesome and good She paints with white and red the moors She walked in flowers around my field Shines the last age, the next with hope is seen Shun passion, fold the hands of thrift Six thankful weeks,—and let it be Slighted Minerva's learned tongue Soft and softlier hold me, friends! Solar insect on the wing Some of your hurts you have cured Space is ample, east and west Spin the ball! I reel, I burn Such another peerless queen Sudden gusts came full of meaning
Tell me, maiden, dost thou use Tell men what they knew before Test of the poet is knowledge of love Thanks to the morning light That book is good That each should in his house abide That you are fair or wise is vain The April winds are magical The archangel Hope The Asmodean feat is mine The atom displaces all atoms beside The bard and mystic held me for their own The beggar begs by God's command The brave Empedocles, defying fools The brook sings on, but sings in vain The cold gray down upon the quinces lieth The cup of life is not so shallow The days pass over me The debt is paid The gale that wrecked you on the sand The green grass is bowing The heavy blue chain The living Heaven thy prayers respect The lords of life, the lords of life The low December vault in June be lifted high Theme no poet gladly sung The mountain and the squirrel The Muse's hill by Fear is guarded The patient Pan The prosperous and beautiful The rhyme of the poet The rocky nook with hilltops three The rules to men made evident The sea is the road of the bold The sense of the world is short The solid, solid universe The South-wind brings The Sphinx is drowsy The sun athwart the cloud thought it no sin The sun goes down, and with him takes The sun set, but set not his hope The tongue is prone to lose the way The water understands The wings of Time are black and white The word of the Lord by night The yesterday doth never smile Thee, dear friend, a brother soothes There are beggars in Iran and Araby There is in all the sons of men There is no great and no small There is no architect They brought me rubies from the mine They put their finger on their lips They say, through patience, chalk Thine eyes still shined for me, though far Think me not unkind and rude This is he, who, felled by foes This shining moment is an edifice Thou foolish Hafiz! Say, do churls Thou shalt make thy house Though her eyes seek other forms Though loath to grieve Though love repine and reason chafe Thousand minstrels woke within me Thy foes to hunt, thy enviers to strike down Thy summer voice, Musketaquit Thy trivial harp will never please To and fro the Genius flies To clothe the fiery thought To transmute crime to wisdom, so to stem Trees in groves True Brahmin, in the morning meadows wet Try the might the Muse affords Two things thou shalt not long for, if thou love a mind serene Two well-assorted travellers use
Unbar the door, since thou the Opener art
Venus, when her son was lost
Was never form and never face We are what we are made; each following day We crossed Champlain to Keeseville with our friends We love the venerable house Well and wisely said the Greek What all the books of ages paint, I have What care I, so they stand the same What central flowing forces, say When all their blooms the meadows flaunt When I was born When success exalts thy lot When the pine tosses its cones When wrath and terror changed Jove's regal port Who gave thee, O Beauty Who knows this or that? 375. Who saw the hid beginnings Who shall tell what did befall Why did all manly gifts in Webster fail? Why fear to die Why lingerest thou, pale violet, to see the dying year Why should I keep holiday Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill? Winters know Wise and polite,—and if I drew Wisp and meteor nightly falling With beams December planets dart With the key of the secret he marches faster Would you know what joy is hid
Yes, sometimes to the sorrow-stricken You shall not be overbold You shall not love me for what daily spends Your picture smiles as first it smiled
* * * * *
INDEX OF TITLES
[The titles in small capital letters are those of the principal divisions of the work; those in lower case are of single poems, or the subdivisions of long poems.]
A.H. [Greek: Adakryn nemontai Aiona] Adirondacs, The Alcuin, From Ali Ben Abu Taleb, From Alphonso of Castile Amulet, The Apology, The April Art Artist Astraea
Bacchus Beauty Bell, The Berrying Birds Blight Boece, Etienne de la Bohemian Hymn, The Borrowing Boston Boston Hymn, read in Music Hall, January 1, 1863 Botanist Brahma
Caritas Casella Celestial Love, The Channing, W.H., Ode inscribed to Character Chartist's Complaint, The Circles Climacteric Compensation Concord Hymn Concord, Ode Sung in the Town Hall, July 4, 1857 Cosmos Culture Cupido
Daemonic Love, The Day's Ration, The Days Destiny Dirge
Each and All Earth, The Earth-Song ELEMENTS AND MOTTOES Ellen, To Ellen, Lines to Enchanter, The Epitaph Eros Eva, To Excelsior Exile, The Experience
Fable Fame Fate Flute, The Forbearance Forerunners Forester Fragments on Nature and Life Fragments on the Poet and the Poetic Gift Freedom Friendship
Garden, The Garden, My Gardener Gifts Give all to Love Good-bye Good Hope Grace Guy
Hafiz Hafiz, From Hamatreya Harp, The Heavens, The Heri, Cras, Hodie Hermione Heroism Holidays Horoscope House, The Humble-Bee, The Hush! Hymn Hymn sung at the Second Church, Boston, at the Ordination of Rev. Chandler Robbins
Ibn Jemin, From Illusions Informing Spirit, The In Memoriam Initial, Daemonic and Celestial Love Initial Love, The Inscription for a Well in Memory of the Martyrs of the War Insight Intellect
J.W., To
Last Farewell, The Letter, A Letters Life Limits Lines by Ellen Louise Tucker Lines to Ellen Love Love and Thought
Maia Maiden Speech of the Aeolian Harp Manners MAY-DAY AND OTHER PIECES May-Day Memory Merlin Merlin's Song Merops Miracle, The Mithridates Monadnoc Monadnoc from afar Mountain Grave, A Music Musketaquid My Garden
Nahant Nature Nature in Leasts Nemesis Night in June Northman Nun's Aspiration, The
October Ode, inscribed to W.H. Channing Ode, sung in the Town Hall, Concord, July 4, 1857 Ode to Beauty Omar Khayyam, From Orator
Pan Park, The Past, The Pericles Peter's Field Phi Beta Kappa Poem, From the Philosopher POEMS OF YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD Poet Poet, The Politics Power Prayer Problem, The Promise Prudence
QUATRAINS AND TRANSLATIONS
Rex Rhea, To Rhodora, The Riches River, The Romany Girl, The Rubies
S.H. Saadi Sacrifice Seashore Security September Shah, To the Shakspeare Snow-Storm, The Solution Song of Nature Song of Seyd Nimetollah of Kuhistan Sonnet of Michel Angelo Buonarotti Sphinx, The Spiritual Laws Summons, The Sunrise Sursum Corda "Suum Cuique"
Terminus Test, The Thine Eyes still Shined Thought Threnody Titmouse, The To-Day To Ellen at the South To Ellen To Eva To J.W. To Rhea To the Shah Transition Translations Two Rivers
Una Unity Uriel
Violet, The Visit, The Voluntaries
Waldeinsamkeit Walden Walk, The Water Waterfall, The Wealth Webster Woodnotes World-Soul, The Worship Written at Rome, 1883 Written in a Volume of Goethe Written in Naples, March, 1883
Xenophanes
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