Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow give all to love. - The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. 9 (Poems)

Return to Title Page for The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. 9 (Poems)

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

Subject Area: Literature

give all to love. - 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.


give all to love.

    • Give all to love;
    • Obey thy heart
    • Friends, kindred, days,
    • Estate, good-fame,
    • Plans, credit and the Muse,—
    • Nothing refuse.
    • 'T is a brave master;
    • Let it have scope:
    • Follow it utterly,
    • Hope beyond hope:
    • High and more high
    • It dives into noon,
    • With wing unspent,
    • Untold intent:
    • But it is a god,
    • Knows its own path
    • And the outlets of the sky.
    • It was never for the mean;
    • It requireth courage stout.
    • Souls above doubt,
    • Valor unbending,
    • It will reward,—
    • They shall return
    • More than they were,
    • And ever ascending.
    • Leave all for love;
    • Yet, hear me, yet,
    • One word more thy heart behoved,
    • One pulse more of firm endeavor,—
    • Keep thee to-day,
    • To-morrow, forever,
    • Free as an Arab
    • Of thy beloved.
    • Cling with life to the maid;
    • But when the surprise,
    • First vague shadow of surmise
    • Flits across her bosom young,
    • Of a joy apart from thee,
    • Free be she, fancy-free;
    • Nor thou detain her vesture's hem,
    • Nor the palest rose she flung
    • From her summer diadem.
    • Though thou loved her as thyself,
    • As a self of purer clay,
    • Though her parting dims the day,
    • Stealing grace from all alive;
    • Heartily know.
    • When half-gods go,
    • The gods arrive.