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.)

ode.
inscribed to w. h. channing.

• • Though loath to grieve
  • The evil time's sole patriot,
  • I cannot leave
  • My honied thought
  • For the priest's cant,
  • Or statesman's rant.
• • If I refuse
  • My study for their politique,
  • Which at the best is trick,
  • The angry Muse
  • Puts confusion in my brain.
• • But who is he that prates
  • Of the culture of mankind,
  • Of better arts and life?
  • Go, blindworm, go,
  • Behold the famous States
  • Harrying Mexico
  • With rifle and with knife!
• • Or who, with accent bolder,
  • Dare praise the freedom-loving mountaineer?
  • I found by thee, O rushing Contoocook!
  • And in thy valleys, Agiochook!
  • The jackals of the negro-holder.
• • The God who made New Hampshire
  • Taunted the lofty land
  • With little men;—
  • Small bat and wren
  • House in the oak:—
  • If earth-fire cleave
  • The upheaved land, and bury the folk,
  • The southern crocodile would grieve.
  • Virtue palters; Right is hence;
  • Freedom praised, but hid;
  • Funeral eloquence
  • Rattles the coffin-lid.
• • What boots thy zeal,
  • O glowing friend,
  • That would indignant rend
  • The northland from the south?
  • Wherefore? to what good end?
  • Boston Bay and Bunker Hill
  • Would serve things still;—
  • Things are of the snake.
• • The horseman serves the horse,
  • The neatherd serves the neat,
  • The merchant serves the purse,
  • The eater serves his meat;
  • 'T is the day of the chattel,
  • Web to weave, and corn to grind;
  • Things are in the saddle,
  • And ride mankind.
• • There are two laws discrete,
  • Not reconciled,—
  • Law for man, and law for thing!
  • The last builds town and fleet,
  • But it runs wild,
  • And doth the man unking.
• • 'T is fit the forest fall,
  • The steep be graded,
  • The mountain tunnelled,
  • The sand shaded,
  • The orchard planted,
  • The glebe tilled,
  • The prairie granted,
  • The steamer built
• • Let man serve law for man;
  • Live for friendship, live for love,
  • For truth's and harmony's behoof;
  • The state may follow how it can,
  • As Olympus follows Jove.
• • Yet do not I implore
  • The wrinkled shopman to my sounding woods,
  • Nor bid the unwilling senator
  • Ask votes of thrushes in the solitudes
  • Every one to his chosen work;—
  • Foolish hands may mix and mar;,
  • Wise and sure the issues are.
  • Round they roll till dark is light,
  • Sex to sex, and even to odd;—
  • The over-god
  • Who marries Right to Might,
  • Who peoples, unpeoples,—
  • He who exterminates
  • Races by stronger races,
  • Black by white faces,—
  • knows to bring honey
  • Out of the lion;
  • Grafts gentlest scion
  • On pirate and Turk.
• • The Cossack eats Poland,
  • Like stolen fruit;
  • Her last noble is ruined,
  • Her last poet mute:
  • Straight, into double band
  • The victors divide;
  • Half for freedom strike and stand;—
  • The astonished Muse finds thousands at her side,