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.)

threnody.

• • The South-wind brings
  • Life, sunshine and desire,
  • And on every mount and meadow
  • Breathes aromatic fire;
  • But over the dead he has no power,
  • The lost, the lost, he cannot restore;
  • And, looking over the hills, I mourn
  • The darling who shall not return.
• • I see my empty house,
  • I see my trees repair their boughs;
  • And he, the wondrous child,
  • Whose silver warble wild
  • Outvalued every pulsing sound
  • Within the air's cerulean round,—
  • The hyacinthine boy, for whom
  • Morn well might break and April bloom,
  • The gracious boy, who did adorn
  • The world whereinto he was born,
  • And by his countenance repay
  • The favor of the loving Day,—
  • Has disappeared from the Day's eye;
  • Far and wide she cannot find him;
  • My hopes pursue, they cannot bind him.
  • Returned this day, the south wind searches,
  • And finds young pines and budding birches;
  • But finds not the budding man;
  • Nature, who lost, cannot remake him;
  • Fate let him fall, Fate can't retake him;
  • Nature, Fate, men, him seek in vain.
• • And whither now, my truant wise and sweet,
  • O, whither tend thy feet?
  • I had the right, few days ago,
  • Thy steps to watch, thy place to know:
  • How have I forfeited the right?
  • Hast thou forgot me in a new delight?
  • I hearken for thy household cheer,
  • O eloquent child!
  • Whose voice, an equal messenger,
  • Conveyed thy meaning mild.
  • What though the pains and joys
  • Whereof it spoke were toys
  • Fitting his age and ken,
  • Yet fairest dames and bearded men,
  • Who heard the sweet request,
  • So gentle, wise and grave.
  • Bended with joy to his behest
  • And let the world's affairs go by,
  • A while to share his cordial game,
  • Or mend his wicker wagon-frame,
  • Still plotting how their hungry ear
  • That winsome voice again might hear;
  • For his lips could well pronounce
  • Words that were persuasions.
• • Gentlest guardians marked serene
  • His early hope, his liberal mien;
  • Took counsel from his guiding eyes
  • To make this wisdom earthly wise.
  • Ah, vainly do these eyes recall
  • The school-march, each day's festival,
  • When every morn my bosom glowed
  • To watch the convoy on the road;
  • The babe in willow wagon closed,
  • With rolling eyes and face composed;
  • With children forward and behind,
  • Like Cupids studiously inclined;
  • And he the chieftain paced beside,
  • The centre of the troop allied,
  • With sunny face of sweet repose,
  • To guard the babe from fancied foes.
  • The little captain innocent
  • Took the eye with him as he went;
  • Each village senior paused to scan
  • And speak the lovely caravan.
  • From the window I look out
  • To mark thy beautiful parade,
  • Stately marching in cap and coat
  • To some tune by fairies played;—
  • A music heard by thee alone
  • To works as noble led thee on.
• • Now Love and Pride, alas! in vain,
  • Up and down their glances strain.
  • The painted sled stands where it stood;
  • The kennel by the corded wood;
  • His gathered sticks to stanch the wall
  • Of the snow-tower, when snow should fall;
  • The ominous hole he dug in the sand,
  • And childhood's castles built or planned;
  • His daily haunts I well discern,—
  • The poultry-yard, the shed, the barn,—
  • And every inch of garden ground
  • Paced by the blessed feet around,
  • From the roadside to the brook
  • Whereinto he loved to look.
  • Step the meek fowls where erst they ranged;
  • The wintry garden lies unchanged;
  • The brook into the stream runs on;
  • But the deep-eyed boy is gone.
• • On that shaded day,
  • Dark with more clouds than tempests are,
  • When thou didst yield thy innocent breath
  • In birdlike heavings unto death,
  • Night came, and Nature had not thee;
  • I said, ‘We are mates in misery.’
  • The morrow dawned with needless glow;
  • Each snowbird chirped, each fowl must crow;
  • Each tramper started; but the feet
  • Of the most beautiful and sweet
  • Of human youth had left the hill
  • And garden,—they were bound and still.
  • There's not a sparrow or a wren,
  • There's not a blade of autumn grain,
  • Which the four seasons do not tend
  • And tides of life and increase lend;
  • And every chick of every bird,
  • And weed and rock-moss is preferred.
  • O ostrich-like forgetfulness!
  • O loss of larger in the less!
  • Was there no star that could be sent,
  • No watcher in the firmament,
  • No angel from the countless host
  • That loiters round the crystal coast,
  • Could stoop to heal that only child,
  • Nature's sweet marvel undefiled,
  • And keep the blossom of the earth,
  • Which all her harvests were not worth?
• • Not mine,—I never called thee mine,
  • But Nature's heir,—if I repine,
  • And seeing rashly torn and moved
  • Not what I made, but what I loved,
  • Grow early old with grief that thou
  • Must to the wastes of Nature go,—
  • 'T is because a general hope
  • Was quenched, and all must doubt and grope.
  • For flattering planets seemed to say
  • This child should ills of ages stay,
  • By wondrous tongue, and guided pen,
  • Bring the flown Muses back to men.
  • Perchance not he but Nature ailed,
  • The world and not the infant failed.
  • It was not ripe yet to sustain
  • A genius of so fine a strain,
  • Who gazed upon the sun and moon
  • As if he came unto his own,
  • And, pregnant with his grander thought,
  • Brought the old order into doubt.
  • His beauty once their beauty tried;
  • They could not feed him, and he died,
  • And wandered backward as in scorn,
  • To wait an æon to be born.
  • Ill day which made this beauty waste,
  • Plight broken, this high face defaced!
  • Some went and came about the dead;
  • And some in books of solace read;
  • Some to their friends the tidings say;
  • Some went to write, some went to pray;
  • One tarried here, there hurried one;
  • But their heart abode with none.
  • Covetous death bereaved us all,
  • To aggrandize one funeral.
• • The eager fate which carried thee
  • Took the largest part of me:
  • For this losing is true dying;
  • This is lordly man's down-lying,
  • This his slow but sure reclining,
  • Star by star his world resigning.
• • O child of paradise,
  • Boy who made dear his father's home,
  • In whose deep eyes
  • Men read the welfare of the times to come,
  • I am too much bereft.
  • The world dishonored thou hast left.
  • O truth's and nature's costly lie!
  • O trusted broken prophecy!
  • O richest fortune sourly crossed!
  • Born for the future, to the future lost!
• • The deep Heart answered, ‘Weepest thou?
  • Worthier cause for passion wild
  • If I had not taken the child.
  • And deemest thou as those who pore,
  • With aged eyes, short way before,—
  • Think'st Beauty vanished from the coast
  • Of matter, and thy darling lost?
  • Taught he not thee—the man of eld,
  • Whose eyes within his eyes beheld
  • Heaven's numerous hierarchy span
  • The mystic gulf from God to man?
  • To be alone wilt thou begin
  • When worlds of lovers hem thee in?
  • To-morrow, when the masks shall fall
  • That dizen Nature's carnival,
  • The pure shall see by their own will,
  • Which overflowing Love shall fill,
  • 'T is not within the force of fate
  • The fate-conjoined to separate.
  • But thou, my votary, weepest thou?
  • I gave thee sight—where is it now?
  • I taught thy heart beyond the reach
  • Of ritual, bible, or of speech;
  • Wrote in thy mind's transparent table,
  • As far as the incommunicable;
  • Taught thee each private sign to raise
  • Lit by the supersolar blaze.
  • Past utterance, and past belief,
  • And past the blasphemy of grief,
  • The mysteries of Nature's heart;
  • And though no Muse can these impart,
  • Throb thine with Nature's throbbing breast,
  • And all is clear from east to west.
• • ‘I came to thee as to a friend;
  • Dearest, to thee I did not send
  • Tutors, but a joyful eye,
  • Innocence that matched the sky,
  • Lovely locks, a form of wonder,
  • Laughter rich as woodland thunder,
  • That thou might'st entertain apart
  • The richest flowering of all art;
  • And, as the great all-loving Day
  • Through smallest chambers takes its way,
  • That thou might'st break thy daily bread
  • With prophet, savior and head;
  • That thou might'st cherish for thine own
  • The riches of sweet Mary's Son,
  • Boy-Rabbi, Israel's paragon.
• • And thoughtest thou such guest
  • Would in thy hall take up his rest?
  • Would rushing life forget her laws,
  • Fate's glowing revolution pause?
  • High omens ask diviner guess;
  • Not to be conned to tediousness
  • And know my higher gifts unbind
  • The zone that girds the incarnate mind.
  • When the scanty shores are full
  • With Thought's perilous, whirling pool;
  • When frail Nature can no more,
  • Then the Spirit strikes the hour:
  • My servant Death, with solving rite,
  • Pours finite into infinite.
  • Wilt thou freeze love's tidal flow,
  • Whose streams through nature circling go?
  • Nail the wild star to its track
  • On the half-climbed zodiac?
  • Light is light which radiates,
  • Blood is blood which circulates,
  • Life is life which generates,
  • And many-seeming life is one,—
  • Wilt thou transfix and make it none?
  • Its onward force too starkly pent
  • In figure, bone, and lineament?
  • Wilt thou, uncalled, interrogate,
  • Talker! the unreplying Fate?
  • Nor see the genius of the whole
  • Ascendant in the private soul,
  • Beckon it when to go and come,
  • Self-announced its hour of doom?
  • Fair the soul's recess and shrine,
  • Magic-built to last a season;
  • Masterpiece of love benign,
  • Fairer that expansive reason
  • Whose omen 't is, and sign.
  • Wilt thou not ope thy heart to know
  • What rainbows teach, and sunsets show?
  • Verdict which accumulates
  • From lengthening scroll of human fates,
  • Voice of earth to earth returned,
  • Prayers of saints that inly burned,—
  • Saying, What is excellent,
  • As God lives, is permanent;
  • Hearts are dust, hearts’ loves remain;
  • Heart's love will meet thee again.
  • Revere the Maker; fetch thine eye
  • Up to his style, and manners of the sky.
  • Not of adamant and gold
  • Built he heaven stark and cold;
  • No, but a nest of bending reeds,
  • Flowering grass and scented weeds;
  • Or like a traveller's fleeing tent,
  • Or bow above the tempest bent;
  • Built of tears and sacred flames,
  • And virtue reaching to its aims;
  • Built of furtherance and pursuing,
  • Not of spent deeds, but of doing.
  • Silent rushes the swift Lord
  • Through ruined systems still restored,
  • Broadsowing, bleak and void to bless.
  • Plants with worlds the wilderness;
  • Waters with tears of ancient sorrow
  • Apples of Eden ripe to-morrow.
  • House and tenant go to ground,
  • Lost in God, in Godhead found.'