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written in naples, march 1833. - 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).

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


written in naples, march 1833.

    • We are what we are made; each following day
    • Is the Creator of our human mould
    • Not less than was the first; the all-wise God
    • Gilds a few points in every several life,
    • And as each flower upon the fresh hill-side,
    • And every colored petal of each flower,
    • Is sketched and dyed each with a new design,
    • Its spot of purple, and its streak of brown,
    • So each man's life shall have its proper lights,
    • And a few joys, a few peculiar charms,
    • For him round—in the melancholy hours
    • And reconcile him to the common days.
    • Not many men see beauty in the fogs
    • Of close low pine-woods in a river town;
    • Yet unto me not morn's magnificence,
    • Nor the red rainbow of a summer eve,
    • Nor Rome, nor joyful Paris, nor the halls
    • Of rich men blazing hospitable light,
    • Nor wit, nor eloquence,—no, nor even the song
    • Of any woman that is now alive,—
    • Hath such a soul, such divine influence,
    • Such resurrection of the happy past,
    • As is to me when I behold the morn
    • Ope in such low moist road-side, and beneath
    • Peep the blue violets out of the black loam,
    • Pathetic silent poets that sing to me
    • Thine elegy, sweet singer, sainted wife.