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.)

saadi.

• • Trees in groves,
  • Kane in droves,
  • In ocean sport the scaly herds,
  • Wedge-like cleave the air the birds,
  • To northern lakes fly wind-borne ducks,
  • Browse the mountain sheep in flocks,
  • Men consort in camp and town,
  • But the poet dwells alone.
• • God, who gave to him the lyre,
  • Of all mortals the desire,
  • For all breathing men's behoof,
  • Straitly charged him, ‘Sit aloof;’
  • Annexed a warning, poets say,
  • To the bright premium,—
  • Ever, when twain together play,
  • Shall the harp be dumb.
• • Many may come,
  • But one shall sing;
  • Two touch the string,
  • The harp is dumb.
  • Though there come a million,
  • Wise Saadi dwells alone.
• • Yet Saadi loved the race of men,—
  • No churl, immured in cave or den;
  • In bower and hall
  • He wants them all,
  • Nor can dispense
  • With Persia for his audience;
  • They must give ear,
  • Grow red with joy and white with fear;
  • Bat he has no companion;
  • Come ten, or come a million,
  • Good Saadi dwells alone.
• • Be thou ware where Saadi dwells;
  • Wisdom of the gods is he,—
  • Entertain it reverently.
  • Gladly round that golden lamp
  • Sylvan deities encamp,
  • And simple maids and noble youth
  • Are welcome to the man of truth.
  • Most welcome they who need him most,
  • They feed the spring which they exhaust;
  • For greater need
  • Draws better deed:
  • But, critic, spare thy vanity,
  • Nor show thy pompous parts,
  • To vex with odious subtlety
  • The cheerer of men's hearts.
• • Sad-eyed Fakirs swiftly say
  • Endless dirges to decay,
  • Never in the blaze of light
  • Lose the shudder of midnight;
  • Pale at overflowing noon
  • Hear wolves barking at the moon;
  • In the bower of dalliance sweet
  • Hear the far Avenger's feet:
  • And shake before those awful Powers,
  • Who in their pride forgive not ours.
  • Thus the sad-eyed Fakirs preach:
  • ‘Bard, when thee would Allah teach.
• • And lift thee to his holy mount,
  • He sends thee from his bitter fount
  • Wormwood,—saying, “Go thy ways;
  • Drink not the Malaga of praise,
  • But do the deed thy fellows hate,
  • And compromise thy peaceful state;
  • Smite the white breasts which thee fed,
  • Stuff sharp thorns beneath the head
  • Of them thou shouldst have comforted;
  • For out of woe and out of crime
  • Draws the heart a lore sublime.”
  • And yet it seemeth not to me
  • That the high gods love tragedy;
  • For Saadi sat in the sun,
  • And thanks was his contrition;
  • For haircloth and for bloody whips,
  • Had active hands and smiling lips;
  • And yet his runes he rightly read,
  • And to his folk his message sped.
  • Sunshine in his heart transferred
  • Lighted each transparent word,
  • And well could honoring Persia learn
  • What Saadi wished to say;
  • For Saadi's nightly stars did burn
  • Brighter than Dschami's day.
• • Whispered the Muse in Saadi's cot;
  • ‘O gentle Saadi, listen not,
  • Tempted by thy praise of wit,
  • Or by thirst and appetite
  • For the talents not thine own,
  • To sons of contradiction.
  • Never, son of eastern morning,
  • Follow falshood, follow scorning.
• • Denounce who will, who will deny,
  • And pile the hills to scale the sky;
  • Let theist, atheist, pantheist,
  • Define and wrangle how they list,
  • Fierce eonserver, fierce destroyer,—
  • But thou, joy-giver and enjoyer,
  • Unknowing war, unknowing crime,
  • Gentle Saadi, mind thy rhyme;
  • Heed not what the brawlers say,
  • Heed thou only Saadi's lay.
• • ‘Let the great world bustle on
  • With war and trade, with camp and town;
  • A thousand men shall dig and eat;
  • At forge and furnace thousands sweat;
  • And thousands sail the purple sea,
  • And give or take the stroke of war,
  • Or crowd the market and bazaar;
  • Oft shall war end, and peace return,
  • And cities rise where cities burn,
  • Ere one man my hill shall climb,
  • Who can turn the golden rhyme.
  • Let them manage how they may,
  • Heed thou only Saadi's lay.
  • Seek the living among the dead,—
  • Man in man is imprisoned;
  • Barefooted Dervish is not poor,
  • If fate unlock his bosom's door,
  • So that what his eye hath seen
  • His tongue can paint as bright, as keen;
  • And what his tender heart hath felt
  • With equal fire thy heart shalt melt.
  • For, whom the Muses smile upon,
  • And touch with soft persuasion,
  • His words like a storm-wind can bring
  • Terror and beauty on their wing;
  • In his every syllable
  • Lurketh nature veritable;
  • And though he speak in midnight dark,—
  • In heaven no star, on earth no spark,—
  • Yet before the listener's eye
  • Swims the world in ecstasy,
  • The forest waves, the morning breaks,
  • The pastures sleep, ripple the lakes,
  • Leaves twinkle, flowers like persons be,
  • And life pulsates in rock or tree.
  • Saadi, so far thy words shall reach:
  • Suns rise and set in Saadi's speech!’
• • And thus to Saadi said the Muse:
  • ‘Eat thou the bread which men refuse;
  • Flee from the goods which from thee flee;
  • Seek nothing,—Fortune seeketh thee.
  • Nor mount, nor dive; all good things keep
  • The midway of the eternal deep.
  • Wish not to fill the isles with eyes
  • To fetch thee birds of paradise:
  • On thine orchard's edge belong
  • All the brags of plume and song;
  • Wise Ali's sunbright sayings pass
  • For proverbs in the market-place:
  • Through mountains bored by regal art,
  • Toil whistles as he drives his cart.
  • Nor scour the seas, nor sift mankind,
  • A poet or a friend to find:
  • Behold, he watches at the door!
  • Behold his shadow on the floor!
• • Open innumerable doors
  • The heaven where unveiled Allah pours
  • The flood of truth, the flood of good,
  • The Seraph's and the Cherub's food.
  • Those doors are men: the Pariah hind
  • Admits thee to the perfect Mind.
  • Seek not beyond thy cottage wall
  • Redeemers that can yield thee all:
  • While thou sittest at thy door
  • On the desert's yellow floor,
  • Listening to the gray-haired crones,
  • Foolish gossips, ancient drones,
  • Saadi, see! they rise in stature
  • To the height of mighty Nature,
  • And the secret stands revealed
  • Fraudulent Time in vain concealed,—
  • That blessed gods in servile masks
  • Plied for thee thy household tasks.’