The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

  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 neatherd 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.

  FORBEARANCE

  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

  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.

  GIVE ALL TO LOVE

  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 every 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.

  THRENO
DY

  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;

  But over the dead he has no power,

  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, 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,

  O, 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,

  A while 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;

  His 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 roadside to the brook

  Whereinto he loved to look.

  Step the meek fowls 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 birdlike heavings unto death,

  Night came, and Nature had not thee;

  I said, ‘We are mates in misery.’

  The morrow dawned with needless glow;

  Each snowbird 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 ostrich-like 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 thou

  Must to the wastes of Nature go—

  ‘T is 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.

  His beauty once 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 his 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,
r />   I am too much bereft.

  The world dishonored thou hast left.

  O truth’s and Nature’s 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,

  ‘T is 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, savior 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 her 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.