Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Sphinx

The Sphinx is drowsy, Her 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

Suum Cuique

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,

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

Threnody

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

Give All To Love

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;

Fate

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,

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;

Good-by

Good-by, proud world, I’m going home, Thou’rt 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

Ode To Beauty

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

Merlin I

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

Uriel

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,

Each And All

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

Two Rivers

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

Alphonso Of Castile

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

The Apology

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

Blight

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,

Celestial Love

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

Painting And Sculpture

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.

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,

Monadnoc

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

Merops

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!

Etienne de la Boéce

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

Sursum Corda

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;

To J. W

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

Tact

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

The Day's Ration

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;

Merlin

I 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

Musketaquid

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

To Ellen, At The South

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

Initial Love

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

The Park

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

Concord Hymn

Sung at the Completion of the Concord Monument, April 19th, 1836 By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the

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,

Saadi

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

The Problem

I like a 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

Loss And Gain

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

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

Dæmonic Love

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,

Ode To William H. Channing

Though loth to grieve The evil time’s sole patriot, I cannot leave My buried thought For the priest’s cant, Or statesman’s rant. If I refuse My study for their politique, Which at the best

Compensation

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?

The Sphynx

The Sphynx is drowsy, Her 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

Astræ

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

Berrying

“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

Eros

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

The Amulet

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

To Eva

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

Brahma

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

Mithridates

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

The Barberry Bush

The bush that has most briers and bitter fruit, Wait till the frost has turned its green leaves red, Its sweetened berries will thy palate suit, And thou may’st find e’en there a homely

The 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 goodwill

Bacchus

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 no savor of the earth

The Snow-Storm

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

Hamatreya

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,

Dirge

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,

Fable

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

Account Of A Visit From St. Nicholas

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the house, Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon