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earth-song. - Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. 9 (Poems) [1909]

Edition used:

The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, in 12 vols. Fireside Edition (Boston and New York, 1909).

Part of: The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, in 12 vols. (Fireside Edition).

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earth-song.

    • ‘Mine and yours;
    • Mine, not yours,
    • Earth endures;
    • Stars abide—
    • Shine down in the old sea;
    • Old are the shores;
    • But where are old men?
    • I who have seen much,
    • Such have I never seen.
    • ‘The lawyer's deed
    • Ran sure,
    • In tail,
    • To them, and to their heirs
    • Who shall succeed,
    • Without fail,
    • Forevermore.
    • ‘Here is the land,
    • Shaggy with wood,
    • With its old valley,
    • Mound and flood.
    • But the heritors?—
    • Fled like the flood's foam.
    • The lawyer, and the laws,
    • And the kingdom,
    • Clean swept herefrom.
    • ‘They called me theirs,
    • Who so controlled me;
    • Yet every one
    • Wished to stay, and is gone,
    • How am I theirs,
    • If they cannot hold me,
    • But I hold them?’
    • When I heard the Earth-song,
    • I was no longer brave;
    • My avarice cooled
    • Like lust in the chill of the grave.