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.)

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 dies
  • In the insufficient skies.
  • Imps, at high midsummer, blot
  • Half the sun's disk with a spot;
  • 'T will not now avail to tan
  • Orange cheek or skin of man.
  • Roses bleach, the goats are dry,
  • Lisbon quakes, the people cry.
  • Yon pale, scrawny fisher fools,
  • Gaunt as bitterns in the pools,
  • Are no brothers of my blood;—
  • They discredit Adamhood.
  • Eyes of gods! ye must have seen,
  • O'er your ramparts as ye lean,
  • The general debility;
  • Of genius the sterility;
  • Mighty projects countermanded;
  • Rash ambition, brokenhanded;
  • Pony man and scentless rose Tormenting Pan to double the dose,
  • Rebuild or ruin: either fill
  • Of vital force the wasted rill,
  • Or tumble all again in heap
  • To weltering chaos and to sleep.
• • Say, Seigniors, are the old Niles dry,
  • Which fed the veins of earth and sky,
  • That mortals miss the loyal heats,
  • Which drove them erst to social feats;
  • Now, to a savage aelfness grown,
  • Think nature barely serves for one;
  • With science poorly mask their hurt,
  • And vex the gods with question pert,
  • Immensely curious whether you
  • Still are rulers, or mildew?
• • Masters, I'm in pain with you;
  • Masters, I'll be plain with you;
  • In my palace of Castile,
  • I, a king, for kings can feel.
  • There my thoughts the matter roll,
  • And solve and oft resolve the whole.
  • And, for I'm styled Alphonse the Wise,
  • Ye shall not fail for sound advice.
  • Before ye want a drop of rain,
  • Hear the sentiment of Spain.
• • You have tried famine: no more try it;
  • Fly us now with a full diet;
  • Teach your pupils now with plenty,
  • For one sun supply us twenty.
  • I have thought it thoroughly over,—
  • State of hermit, state of lover;
  • We must have society,
  • We cannot spare variety.
  • Hear you, then, celestial fellows!
  • Fits not to be overzealous;
  • Steads not to work on the clean jump,
  • Nor wine nor brains perpetual pump.
  • Men and gods are too extense;
  • Could you slacken and condense?
  • Your rank overgrowths reduce
  • Till your kinds abound with juice?
  • Earth, crowded, cries, ‘Too many men!’
  • My counsel is, kill nine in ten,
  • And bestow the shares of all
  • On the remnant decimal.
  • Add their nine lives to this cat;
  • Stuff their nine brains in one hat;
  • Make his frame and forces square
  • With the labors he must dare;
  • Thatch his flesh, and even his years
  • With the marble which he rears.
  • There, growing slowly old at ease,
  • No faster than his planted trees,
  • He may, by warrant of his age,
  • In schemes of broader scope engage.
  • So shall ye have a man of the sphere
  • Fit to grace the solar year.