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nature. - Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. 9 (Poems) [1909]

Edition used:

The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, in 12 vols. Fireside Edition (Boston and New York, 1909).

Part of: The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, in 12 vols. (Fireside Edition).

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nature.

ii.

    • She is gamesome and good,
    • But of mutable mood,—
    • No dreary repeater now and again,
    • She will be all things to all men.
    • She who is old, but nowise feeble,
    • Pours her power into the people,
    • Merry and manifold without bar,
    • Makes and moulds them what they are,
    • And what they call their city way
    • Is not their way, but hers,
    • And what they say they made to-day,
    • They learned of the oaks and firs.
    • She spawneth men as mallows fresh,
    • Hero and maiden, flesh of her flesh;
    • She drugs her water and her wheat
    • With the flavors she finds meet,
    • And gives them what to drink and eat;
    • And having thus their bread and growth,
    • They do her bidding, nothing loath.
    • What's most theirs is not their own,
    • But borrowed in atoms from iron and stone,
    • And in their vaunted works of Art
    • The master-stroke is still her part.