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the chartist's complaint. - 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 chartist's complaint.

    • Day! hast thou two faces,
    • Making one place two places?
    • One, by humble farmer seen,
    • Chill and wet, unlighted, mean,
    • Useful only, triste and damp,
    • Serving for a laborer's lamp?
    • Have the same mists another side,
    • To be the appanage of pride,
    • Gracing the rich man's wood and lake,
    • His park where amber mornings break,
    • And treacherously bright to show
    • His planted isle where roses glow?
    • O Day! and is your mightiness
    • A sycophant to smug success?
    • Will the sweet sky and ocean broad
    • Be fine accomplices to fraud?
    • O Sun! I curse thy cruel ray:
    • Back, back to chaos, harlot Day!