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the apology. - 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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the apology.

    • Think me not unkind and rude
    • That I walk alone in grove and glen;
    • I go to the god of the wood
    • To fetch his word to men.
    • Tax not my sloth that I
    • Fold my arms beside the brook;
    • Each cloud that floated in the sky
    • Writes a letter in my book.
    • Chide me not, laborious band,
    • For the idle flowers I brought;
    • Every aster in my hand
    • Goes home loaded with a thought.
    • There was never mystery
    • But 't is figured in the flowers;
    • Was never secret history
    • But birds tell it in the bowers.
    • One harvest from thy field
    • Homeward brought the oxen strong;
    • A second crop thine acres yield,
    • Which I gather in a song.