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the romany girl. - 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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the romany girl.

    • The sun goes down, and with him takes
    • The coarseness of my poor attire;
    • The fair moon mounts, and aye the flame
    • Of Gypsy beauty blazes higher.
    • Pale Northern girls! you scorn our race;
    • You captives of your air-tight halls,
    • Wear out in-doors your sickly days,
    • But leave us the horizon walls.
    • And if I take you, dames, to task,
    • And say it frankly without guile,
    • Then you are Gypsies in a mask,
    • And I the lady all the while.
    • If on the heath, below the moon,
    • I court and play with paler blood,
    • Me false to mine dare whisper none,—
    • One sallow horseman knows me good.
    • Go, keep your cheek's rose from the rain,
    • For teeth and hair with shopmen deal;
    • My swarthy tint is in the grain,
    • The rocks and forest know it real.
    • The wild air bloweth in our lungs,
    • The keen stars twinkle in our eyes,
    • The birds gave us our wily tongues,
    • The panther in our dances flies.
    • Ton doubt we read the stars on high,
    • Nathless we read your fortunes true;
    • The stars may hide in the upper sky,
    • But without glass we fathom you.