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.)

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.]

• • The rocky nook with hill-tops three
  • Looked eastward from the farms,
  • And twice each day the flowing sea
  • Took Boston in its arms;
  • The men of yore were stout and poor,
  • And sailed for bread to every shore.
• • And where they went on trade intent
  • They did what freemen can,
  • Their dauntless ways did all men praise,
  • The merchant was a man.
  • The world was made for honest trade,—
  • To plant and eat be none afraid.
• • The waves that rocked them on the deep
  • To them their secret told;
  • Said the winds that sung the lads to sleep,
  • “Like us be free and bold!”
  • The honest waves refused to slaves
  • The empire of the ocean caves.
• • Old Europe groans with palaces,
  • Has lords enough and more;—
  • We plant and build by foaming seas
  • A city of the poor;—
  • For day by day could Boston Bay
  • Their honest labor overpay.
• • We grant no dukedoms to the few,
  • We hold like rights, and shall;—
  • Equal on Sunday in the pew,
  • On Monday in the mall,
  • For what avail the plough or sail,
  • Or land or life, if freedom fail?
• • The noble craftsman we promote,
  • Disown the knave and fool;
  • Each honest man shall have his vote,
  • Each child shall have his school.
  • A union then of honest men,
  • Or union never more again.
• • The wild rose and the barberry thorn
  • Hung out their summer pride,
  • Where now on heated pavements worn
  • The feet of millions stride.
• • Fair rose the planted hills behind
  • The good town on the bay,
  • And where the western hills declined
  • The prairie stretched away.
• • What care though rival cities soar
  • Along the stormy coast,
  • Penn's town, New York and Baltimore,
  • If Boston knew the most!
• • They laughed to know the world so wide;
  • The mountains said, “Good-day!
  • We greet you well, you Saxon men,
  • Up with your towns and stay!”
  • The world was made for honest trade,—
  • To plant and eat be none afraid.
• • “For you,” they said, “no barriers be,
  • For you no sluggard rest;
  • Each street leads downward to the sea,
  • Or landward to the west.”
• • O happy town beside the sea,
  • Whose roads lead everywhere to all;
  • Than thine no deeper moat can be,
  • No stouter fence, no steeper wall!
• • Bad news from George on the English throne;
  • “You are thriving well,” said he;
  • “Now by these presents be it known
  • You shall pay us a tax on tea;
  • 'T is very small,—no load at all,—
  • Honor enough that we send the call.”
• • “Not so,” said Boston, “good my lord,
  • We pay your governors here
  • Abundant for their bed and board,
  • Six thousand pounds a year.
• • (Your Highness knows our homely word,)
  • Millions for self-government,
  • But for tribute never a cent.”
• • The cargo came! and who could blame
  • If Indians seized the tea,
  • And, chest by chest, let down the same,
  • Into the laughing sea?
  • For what avail the plough or sail,
  • Or land or life, if freedom fail?
• • The townsmen braved the English king,
  • Found friendship in the French,
  • And honor joined the patriot ring
  • Low on their wooden bench.
• • O bounteous seas that never fail!
  • O day remembered yet!
  • O happy port that spied the sail
  • Which wafted Lafayette!
  • Pole-star of light in Europe's night,
  • That never faltered from the right.
• • Kings shook with fear, old empires crave
  • The secret force to find
  • Which fired the little State to save
  • The rights of all mankind.
• • But right is might through all the world;
  • Province to province faithful clung,
  • Through good and ill the war-bolt hurled,
  • Till Freedom cheered and joy-bells rung.
• • The sea returning day by day
  • Restores the world-wide mart;
  • So let each dweller on the Bay
  • Fold Boston in his heart,
  • Till these echoes be choked with snows,
  • Or over the town blue ocean flows.
• • Let the blood of her hundred thousands
  • Throb in each manly vein;
  • And the wits of all her wisest,
  • Make sunshine in her brain.
  • For you can teach the lightning speech,
  • And round the globe your voices reach.
• • And each shall care for other,
  • And each to each shall bend,
  • To the poor a noble brother,
  • To the good an equal friend.
• • A blessing through the ages thus
  • Shield all thy roofs and towers!
  • Godwith the fathers, so with us,
  • Thou darling town of ours!

This poem was begun several years before the War, but was not finished until the occasion of its delivery in 1873, the anniversary festival, when the piece was entirely remodelled.

Some of the suppressed stanzas are here given.

The poem began thus:—

• • The land that has no song
  • Shall have a song to-day
  • The granite ledge is dumb too long,
  • The vales have much to say:
  • For you can teach the lightning speech,
  • And round the globe your voices reach.

After the lines on Lafayette followed these stanzas:—

• • O pity that I pause!
  • The song disdaining shuns
  • To name the noble sires, because
  • Of the unworthy sons
  • For what avail the plough or sail,
  • Or land or life, if freedom fail?
• • But there was chaff within the flour,
  • And one was false in ten,
  • And reckless clerks in lust of power
  • Forgot the rights of men;
  • Cruel and blind did file their mind,
  • And sell the blood of human kind.
• • Your town is full of gentle names,
  • By patriots once were watchwords made;
  • Those war-cry names are muffled shames
  • On recreant sons mislaid.
  • What slave shall dare a name to wear
  • Once Freedom's passport everywhere?
• • O welaway' if this be so,
  • And man cannot afford the right,
  • And if the wage of love be woe,
  • And honest dealing yield despite.
  • For what avail or plough or sail,
  • Or land or life, if freedom fail?
• • Hie to the woods, sleek citizen,
  • Back to the sea, go, landsman, down,
  • Clumb the White Hills, fat alderman,
  • And vacant leave the town,
  • Ere these echoes be choked with snows,
  • Or over the roofs blue Ocean flows.