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.

ii.

• • The rhyme of the poet
  • Modulates the king's affairs;
  • Balance-loving Nature
  • Made all things in pairs.
  • To every foot its antipode;
  • Each color with its counter glowed;
  • To every tone beat answering tones,
  • Higher or graver;
  • Flavor gladly blends with flavor;
  • Leaf answers leaf upon on the bough;
  • And match the paired cotyledons.
  • Hands to hands, and feet to feet,
  • In one body grooms and brides;
  • Eldest rite, two married sides
  • In every mortal meet.
  • Light's far furnace shines,
  • Smelting balls and bars,
  • Forging double stars,
  • Glittering twins and trines.
  • The animals are sick with love,
  • Lovesick with rhyme;
  • Each with all propitious Time
  • Into chorus wove.
  • Like the dancers' ordered band,
  • Thoughts come also hand in hand;
  • In equal couples mated,
  • Or else alternated;
  • Adding by their mutual gage,
  • One to other, health and age.
  • Solitary fancies go
  • Short-lived wandering to and fro,
  • Most like to bachelors,
  • Or an ungiven maid,
  • Not ancestors,
  • With no posterity to make the lie afraid,
  • Or keep truth undecayed.
  • Perfect-paired as eagle's wings,
  • Justice is the rhyme of things;
  • Trade and counting use
  • The self-same tuneful muse;
  • And Nemesis,
  • Who with even matches odd,
  • Who athwart space redresses
  • The partial wrong,
  • Fills the just period,
  • And finishes the song.
• • Subtle rhymes, with ruin rife,
  • Murmur in the house of life,
  • Sung by the Sisters as they spin;
  • In perfect time and measure they
  • Build and unbuild our echoing clay.
  • As the two twilights of the day
  • Fold us music-drunken in.