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étienne de la boéce. - 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).

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


étienne de la boéce.

    • I serve you not, if you I follow,
    • Shadowlike, o'er hill and hollow;
    • And bend my fancy to your leading,
    • All too nimble for my treading.
    • When the pilgrimage is done,
    • And we've the landscape overrun,
    • I am bitter, vacant, thwarted,
    • And your heart is unsupported.
    • Vainly valiant, you have missed
    • The manhood that should yours resist,—
    • Its complement; but if I could,
    • In severe or cordial mood,
    • Lead you rightly to my altar,
    • Where the wisest Muses falter,
    • And worship that world-warming spark
    • Which dazzles me in midnight dark,
    • Equalizing small and large,
    • While the soul it doth surcharge,
    • Till the poor is wealthy grown,
    • And the hermit never alone,—
    • The traveller and the road seem one
    • With the errand to be done,—
    • That were a man's and lover's part,
    • That were Freedom's whitest chart.