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.)

merlin.

i.

• • Thy trivial harp will never please
  • Or fill my craving ear;
  • Its chords should ring as blows the breeze,
  • Free, peremptory, clear.
  • No jingling serenader's art,
  • Nor tinkle of piano strings,
  • Can make the wild blood start
  • In its mystic springs.
  • The kingly bard
  • Must smite the chords rudely and hard.
  • As with hammer or with mace;
  • That they may render back
  • Artful thunder, which conveys
  • Secrets of the solar track,
  • Sparks of the supersolar blaze.
  • Merlin's blows are strokes of fate,
  • Chiming with the forest tone,
  • When boughs buffet boughs in the wood;
  • Chiming with the gasp and moan
  • Of the ice-imprisoned flood;
  • With the pulse of manly hearts;
  • With the voice of orators;
  • With the din of city arts;
  • With the cannonade of wars;
  • With the marches of the brave;
  • And prayers of might from martyrs' cave.
• • Great is the art,
  • Great be the manners, of the bard.
  • He shall not his brain encumber
  • With the coil of rhythm and number;
  • But, leaving rule and pale forethought,
  • He shall aye climb
  • For his rhyme.
  • ‘Pass in, pass in,’ the angels say,
  • ‘In to the upper doors,
  • Nor count compartments of the floors,
  • But mount to paradise
  • By the stairway of surprise.’
• • Blameless master of the games,
  • King of sport that never shames,
  • He shall daily joy dispense
  • Hid in song's sweet influence.
  • Forms more cheerly live and go,
  • What time the subtle mind
  • Sings aloud the tune whereto
  • Their pulses beat,
  • And march their feet,
  • And their members are combined.
• • By Sybarites beguiled,
  • He shall no task decline;
  • Merlin's mighty line
  • Extremes of nature reconciled,—
  • Bereaved a tyrant of his will,
  • And made the lion mild.
  • Songs can the tempest still,
  • Scattered on the stormy air,
  • Mould the year to fair increase,
  • And bring in poetic peace.
• • He shall not seek to weave,
  • In weak, unhappy times,
  • Efficacious rhymes;
  • Wait his returning strength.
  • Bird that from the nadir's floor
  • To the zenith's top can soar,—
  • The soaring orbit of the muse exceeds that journey's length.
  • Nor profane affect to hit
  • Or compass that, by meddling wit,
  • Which only the propitious mind
  • Publishes when 't is inclined.
  • There are open hours
  • When the God's will sallies free,
  • And the dull idiot might see
  • The flowing fortunes of a thousand years;—
  • Sudden, at unawares,
  • Self-moved, fly-to the doors,
  • Nor sword of angels could reveal
  • What they conceal.