1860.

A cry of defiance and not of fear,

A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,

And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,

In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

125

130

1961.

DIVINA COMMEDIA

Oft have I seen at some cathedral door

A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat,
Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet
Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor
Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er:

Far off the noises of the world retreat;
The loud vociferations of the street
Become an undistinguishable roar.
So, as I enter here from day to day,

And leave my burden at this minster gate,
Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray,
The tumult of the time disconsolate

To inarticulate murmurs dies away,
While the eternal ages watch and wait.

и

IO

1864.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

GOOD-BYE

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:

1864.

5

1Ο

15

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?

1823.

20

25

30

1839.

THE RHODORA

ON BEING ASKED WHENCE IS THE FLOWER

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals, fallen in the pool,

5

Made the black water with their beauty gay;

Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.

Rhodora, if the sages ask thee why

This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,

ΙΟ

Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,

Then Beauty is its own excuse for being.

Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose,

I never thought to ask, I never knew;

But in my simple ignorance suppose

15

The self-same Power that brought me there, brought you.

1834.

1839.

EACH AND ALL

Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown

Of thee from the hill-top looking down;

The heifer that lows in the upland farm,

Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm;

The sexton tolling his bell at noon,

Deems not that great Napoleon

Stops his horse and lists with delight,

Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height;

Nor knowest thou what argument

Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent.

All are needed by each one,

Nothing is fair or good alone.

I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,

Singing at dawn on the alder bough:

I brought him home in his nest at even;

15

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:

20

I wiped away the weeds and foam,

I fetched my sea-born treasures home;

25

But the poor, unsightly, noisome things

Had left their beauty on the shore

With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.

SUNG AT THE COMPLETION OF THE CONCORD MONUMENT

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.