Whose pipe and arrow oft the plough unburies, Here in pine houses built of new-fallen trees, 30 Supplanters of the tribe, the farmers dwell. Traveller, to thee, perchance, a tedious road, Or, it may be, a 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 the chemist 'mid his loaded jars, Draw from each stratum its adapted use To drug their crops or weapon their arts withal. 40 The polite found me impolite; the great hurts 70 As, when the all-worshipped moon attracts the eye, The river, hill, stems, foliage are obscure, Yet envies none, none are unenviable." "Poems," 1847. ÉTIENNE DE LA BOÉCE 1 I serve you not, if you I follow, The manhood that should yours resist,— 10 And worship that world-warning spark While the soul it doth surcharge, The traveller and the road seem one 1833. 20 "Poems," 1847. BRAHMA 2 The strong gods pine for my abode, DAYS 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, and sky that holds them all. I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp, Forgot my morning wishes, hastily Atlantic Monthly, Nov., 1857. THE ROMANY GIRL The sun goes down, and with him takes Pale Northern girls! you scorn our race; And if I take you, dames, to task, If on the heath, below the moon, 10 Behold the Sea, The opaline, the plentiful and strong, Yet beautiful as is the rose in June, Fresh as the trickling rainbow of July; 20 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, 30 Wealth to the cunning artist who can work This matchless strength. Where shall he find, O waves! A load your Atlas shoulders cannot lift? 1 This poem, as E. W. Emerson records, is a striking illustration of Emerson's oneness in method and point of view in his writing of prose and verse. The day after a two-weeks' visit to Cape Ann in 1857 he entered in his journal a prose passage, which with almost no changes he recast into this blank verse. The original entry in the Journal occurs for July 3, 1857. A similar parallel passage is supplied for "Two Rivers," in E. W. Emerson's "Emerson in Concord," pp. 232, 3. Oblivion here thy wisdom is, Atlantic Monthly, Oct., 1858. WORSHIP This is he, who, felled by foes, Sprung harmless up, refreshed by blows: But him no prison-bars would hold: Threading dark ways, arriving late, More near than aught thou call'st thy Aloft, in secret veins of air, Blows the sweet breath of song, Fire their fiercer flaming felt, O, few to scale those uplands dare, Though they to all belong! 40 And the meaning was more white Than July's meridian light. 10 See thou bring not to field or stone Sunshine cannot bleach the snow, Atlantic Monthly, Jan., 1861. 80 With glad remembrance of my debt, I think old Cæsar must have heard 1862. 100 Atlantic Monthly, May, 1862, |