The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Biographical Sketch.
• I.: Poems.
• The Sphinx.
• Each and All.
• The Problem.
• To Rhea.
• The Visit.
• Uriel.
• The World-soul.
• Alphonso of Castile.
• Mithridates.
• To J. W.
• Destiny.
• Guy.
• Hamatreya.
• Earth-song.
• Good-bye.
• The Rhodora: On Being Asked, Whence Is the Flower?
• The Humble-bee.
• Berrying.
• The Snow-storm.
• Woodnotes.
• Woodnotes.
• Monadnoc.
• Fable.
• Ode. Inscribed to W. H. Channing.
• Astræ
• étienne De La Boéce.
• Compensation.
• Forbearance.
• The Park.
• Forerunners.
• Sursum Corda.
• Ode to Beauty.
• Give All to Love.
• To Ellen At the South.
• To Eva.
• The Amulet.
• Thine Eyes Still Shined.
• Eros.
• Hermione.
• Initial, Dæmonic, and Celestial Love
• The Apology.
• Merlin.
• Merlin.
• Bacchus.
• Merops.
• Saadi.
• Holidays.
• Xenophanes.
• The Day's Ration.
• Blight.
• Musketaquid.
• Dirge. Concord, 1838.
• Threnody.
• Concord Hymn: Sung At the Completion of the Battle Monument, April 19, 1836.
• II.: May-day and Other Pieces.
• May-day.
• The Adirondacs. a Journal.
• Occasional and Misc. Pieces: Brahma.
• Fate.
• Freedom.
• Ode. Sung In the Town Hall, Concord, July 4, 1857.
• Boston Hymn. Read In Music Hall, January 1, 1863.
• Voluntaries
• Boston. Sicut Patribus, Sit Deus Nobib. [read In Faneuil Hall, On December 16, 1873, the Centennial Anniverary At the Destruction of the Tea In Roston Harbor.]
• Letters.
• Rubies.
• The Test. (musa Loquitur.)
• Solution.
• Hymn Sung At the Second Church, Boston, At the Ordination of Rev. Chandler Robbins.
• Nature and Life: Nature.
• Nature.
• The Romany Girl.
• Days.
• The Chartist's Complaint.
• My Garden.
• The Titmouse.
• The Harp.
• Sea-shore.
• Song of Nature.
• Two Rivers.
• Waldeinsamkeit.
• Terminus.
• The Nun's Aspiration.
• April.
• Maiden Speech of the æolian Harp.
• Cupido.
• The Past.
• The Last Farewell. Lines Written By the Author's Brother, Edward Bliss Emerson, Whilst Sailing Out of Boston Harbor, Bound For the Island of Porto Rico, In 1832.
• In Memoriam. Edward Bliss Emerson.
• Elements: Experience.
• Compensation.
• Politics.
• Heroism.
• Character. 1
• Culture.
• Friendship.
• Beauty.
• Manners.
• Art.
• Spiritual Laws.
• Unity.
• Worship.
• Quatrains.
• Translations.
• III.: Appendix.
• The Poet. 1
• Fragments On the Poet and the Poetic Gift. 1
• Fragments On Nature and Life.
• The Bohemian Hymn.
• Prayer.
• Grace.
• Eros.
• Written In Naples, March 1833.
• Written At Rome, 1833.
• Peter's Field. 1
• The Walk.
• May Morning.
• The Miracle.
• The Waterfall.
• Walden. 1
• Pan.
• Monadnoc From Afar.
• The South Wind.
• Fame.
• Webster. From the Phi Beta Kappa Poem, 1834.
• Written In a Volume of Goethe.
• The Enchanter.
• Philosopher.
• Limits.
• Inscription For a Well In Memory of the Martyrs of the War.
• The Exile. (after Taliessin.)

each and all.

• • Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked down
  • 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;
  • He sings the song, but it cheers 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.
  • I wiped away the weeds and foam,
  • I fetched my sea-born treasures home;
  • But the poor, unsightly, noisome things
  • Had left their beauty on the shore
  • With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.
  • The lover watched his graceful maid,
  • As ‘mid the virgin train she strayed,
  • Nor knew her beauty's best attire
  • Was woven still by the snow-white choir.
  • At last she came to his hermitage,
  • Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage;—
  • The gay enchantment was undone,
  • A gentle wife, but fairy none.
  • Then I said, ‘I covet truth;
  • Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat;
  • I leave it behind with the games of youth;’—
  • As I spoke, beneath my feet
  • The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath,
  • Running over the club-moss burrs;
  • I inhaled the violet's breath;
  • Around me stood the oaks and firs;
  • Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground;
  • Over me soared the eternal sky,
  • Full of light and of deity;
  • Again I saw, again I heard,
  • The rolling river, the morning bird;—
  • Beauty through my senses stole;
  • I yielded myself to the perfect whole.