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.)

the titmouse.

• • You shall not be overbold
  • When you deal with arctic cold,
  • As late I found my lukewarm blood
  • Chilled wading in the snow-choked wood.
  • How should I fight? my foeman fine
  • Has million arms to one of mine:
  • East, west, for aid I looked in vain,
  • East, west, north, south, are his domain.
  • Miles off, three dangerous miles, is home;
  • Must borrow his winds who there would coma
  • Up and away for life! be fleet!—
  • The frost-king ties my fumbling feet,
  • Sings in my ears, my hands are stones,
  • Curdles the blood to the marble bones,
  • Tugs at the heart-strings, numbs the sense,
  • And hems in life with narrowing fence.
  • Well, in this broad bed lie and sleep,—
  • The punctual stars will vigil keep,—
  • Embalmed by purifying cold;
  • The winds shall sing their dead-march old,
  • The snow is no ignoble shroud,
  • The moon thy mourner, and the cloud.
• • Softly,—but this way fate was pointing,
  • T was coming fast to such anointing,
  • When piped a tiny voice hard by,
  • Gay and polite, a cheerful cry,
  • Chic-chicadeedee! saucy note
  • Out of sound heart and merry throat,
  • As if it said, ‘Good day, good sir!
  • Fine afternoon, old passenger!
  • Happy to meet you in these places,
  • Where January brings few faces.’
• • This poet, though he live apart,
  • Moved by his hospitable heart,
  • Sped, when I passed his sylvan fort,
  • To do the honors of his court,
  • As fits a feathered lord of land,
  • Flew near, with soft wing grazed my hand,
  • Hopped on the bough, then, darting low,
  • Prints his small impress on the snow,
  • Shows feats of his gymnastic play,
  • Head downward, clinging to the spray.
• • Here was this atom in full breath,
  • Hurling defiance at vast death;
  • This scrap of valor just for play
  • Fronts the north-wind in waistcoat gray,
  • As if to shame my weak behavior;
  • I greeted loud my little savior,
  • ‘You pet! what dost here? and what for?
  • In these woods, thy small Labrador,
  • At this pinch, wee San Salvador!
  • What fire burns in that little chest
  • So frolic, stout and self-possest?
  • Henceforth I wear no stripe but thine;
  • Ashes and jet all hues outshine.
  • Why are not diamonds black and gray,
  • To ape thy dare-devil array?
  • And I affirm, the spacious North
  • Exists to draw thy virtue forth.
  • I think no virtue goes with size;
  • The reason of all cowardice
  • Is, that men are overgrown,
  • And, to be valiant, must come down
  • To the titmouse dimension,’
• • 'T is good-will makes intelligence,
  • And I began to catch the sense
  • Of my bird's song: ‘Live out of doors
  • In the great woods, on prairie floors.
  • I dine in the sun; when he sinks in the sea,
  • I too have a hole in a hollow tree;
  • And I like less when Summer beats
  • With stifling beams on these retreats,
  • Than noontide twilights which snow makes
  • With tempest of the blinding flakes.
  • For well the soul, if stout within,
  • Can arm impregnably the skin;
  • And polar frost my frame defied,
  • Made of the air that blows outside.’
• • With glad remembrance of my debt,
  • I homeward turn; farewell, my pet!
  • When here again thy pilgrim comes,
  • He shall bring store of seeds and crumbs.
  • Doubt not, so long as earth has bread,
  • Thou first and foremost shalt be fed;
  • The Providence that is most large
  • Takes hearts like thine in special charge,
  • Helps who for their own need are strong,
  • And the sky doats on cheerful song.
  • Henceforth I prize thy wiry chant
  • O'er all that mass and minster vaunt;
  • For men mis-hear thy call in Spring,
  • As't would accost some frivolous wing,
  • Crying out of the hazel copse, Phe-be!
  • And, in winter, Chic-a-dee-dee!
  • I think old Cæsar must have heard
  • In northern Gaul my dauntless bird,
  • And, echoed in some frosty wold,
  • Borrowed thy battle-numbers bold.
  • And I will write our annals new,
  • And thank thee for a better clew,
  • I, who dreamed not when I came here
  • To find the antidote of fear,
  • Now hear thee say in Roman key,
  • pœan! Veni, vidi, vici.