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.)

the world-soul.

• • Thanks to the morning light,
  • Thanks to the foaming sea,
  • To the uplands of New Hampshire,
  • To the green-haired forest free;
  • Thanks to each man of courage,
  • To the maids of holy mind,
  • To the boy with his games undaunted
  • Who never looks behind.
• • Cities of proud hotels,
  • Houses of rich and great,
  • Vice nestles in your chambers,
  • Beneath your roofs of slate.
  • It cannot conquer folly,—
  • Time-and-space-conquering steam,—
  • And the light-outspeeding telegraph
  • Bears nothing on its beam.
• • The politics are base;
  • The letters do not cheer;
  • And 't is far in the deeps of history,
  • The voice that speaketh clear.
  • Trade and the streets ensnare us,
  • Our bodies are weak and worn;
  • We plot and corrupt each other,
  • And we despoil the unborn.
• • Yet there in the parlor sits
  • Some figure of noble guise,—
  • Our angel, in a stranger's form,
  • Or woman's pleading eyes;
  • Or only a flashing sunbeam
  • In at the window-pane;
  • Or Music pours on mortals
  • Its beautiful disdain.
• • The inevitable morning
  • Finds them who in cellars be;
  • And be sure the all-loving Nature
  • Will smile in a factory.
  • Yon ridge of purple landscape,
  • Yon sky between the walls,
  • Hold all the hidden wonders
  • In scanty intervals.
• • Alas! the Sprite that haunts us
  • Deceives our rash desire;
  • It whispers of the glorious gods,
  • And leaves us in the mire.
  • We cannot learn the cipher
  • That's writ upon our cell;
  • Stars taunt us by a mystery
  • Which we could never spell.
• • If but one hero knew it,
  • The world would blush in flame;
  • The sage, till he bit the secret,
  • Would hang his head for shame.
  • Our brothers have not read it,
  • Not one has found the key;
  • And henceforth we are comforted,—
  • We are but such as they.
• • Still, still the secret presses;
  • The nearing clouds draw down;
  • The crimson morning flames into
  • The fopperies of the town.
  • Within, without the idle earth,
  • Stars weave eternal rings;
  • The sun himself shines heartily,
  • And shares the joy he brings.
• • And what if Trade sow cities
  • Like shells along the shore,
  • And thatch with towns the prairie broad
  • With railways ironed o'er?—
  • They are but sailing foam-bells
  • Along Thought's causing stream,
  • And take their shape and sun-color
  • From him that sends the dream.
• • For Destiny never swerves,
  • Nor yields to men the helm;
  • He shoots his thought, by hidden nerves,
  • Throughout the solid realm.
  • The patient Dæmon sits,
  • With roses and a shroud;
  • He has his way, and deals his gifts,—
  • But ours is not allowed.
• • He is no churl nor trifler,
  • And his viceroy is none,—
  • Love-without-weakness,—
  • Of Genius sire and son.
  • And bis will is not thwarted;
  • The seeds of land and sea
  • Are the atoms of his body bright,
  • And his behest obey.
• • He serveth the servant,
  • The brave he loves amain;
  • He kills the cripple and the sick,
  • And straight begins again;
  • For gods delight in gods,
  • And thrust the weak aside;
  • To him who scorns their charities
  • Their arms fly open wide.
• • When the old world is sterile
  • And the ages are effete,
  • He will from wrecks and sediment
  • The fairer world complete.
  • He forbids to despair;
  • His cheeks mantle with mirth;
  • And the unimagined good of men
  • Is yeaning at the birth.
• • Spring still makes spring in the mind
  • When sixty years are told;
  • Love wakes anew this throbbing heart,
  • And we are never old.
  • Over the winter glaciers
  • I see the summer glow,
  • And through the wild-piled snowdrift,
  • The warm rosebuds below.