Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson Part 22

Gay for youth, gay for youth, (Sweet is art, but sweeter truth,) In the hall at summer eve Fate and Beauty skilled to weave.

From the eager opening strings Rung loud and bold the song.

Who but loved the wind-harp's note?

How should not the poet doat On its mystic tongue, With its primeval memory, Reporting what old minstrels told Of Merlin locked the harp within,-- Merlin paying the pain of sin, Pent in a dungeon made of air,-- And some attain his voice to hear, Words of pain and cries of fear, But pillowed all on melody, As fits the griefs of bards to be.

And what if that all-echoing sh.e.l.l, Which thus the buried Past can tell, Should rive the Future, and reveal What his dread folds would fain conceal?

It shares the secret of the earth, And of the kinds that owe her birth.

Speaks not of self that mystic tone, But of the OverG.o.ds alone: It trembles to the cosmic breath,-- As it heareth, so it saith; Obeying meek the primal Cause, It is the tongue of mundane laws.

And this, at least, I dare affirm, Since genius too has bound and term, There is no bard in all the choir, Not Homer's self, the poet sire, Wise Milton's odes of pensive pleasure, Or Shakspeare, whom no mind can measure, Nor Collins' verse of tender pain, Nor Byron's clarion of disdain, Scott, the delight of generous boys, Or Wordsworth, Pan's recording voice,-- Not one of all can put in verse, Or to this presence could rehea.r.s.e The sights and voices ravis.h.i.+ng The boy knew on the hills in spring, When pacing through the oaks he heard Sharp queries of the sentry-bird, The heavy grouse's sudden whir, The rattle of the kingfisher; Saw bonfires of the harlot flies In the lowland, when day dies; Or marked, benighted and forlorn, The first far signal-fire of morn.

These syllables that Nature spoke, And the thoughts that in him woke, Can adequately utter none Save to his ear the wind-harp lone.

Therein I hear the Parcae reel The threads of man at their humming wheel, The threads of life and power and pain, So sweet and mournful falls the strain.

And best can teach its Delphian chord How Nature to the soul is moored, If once again that silent string, As erst it wont, would thrill and ring.

Not long ago at eventide, It seemed, so listening, at my side A window rose, and, to say sooth, I looked forth on the fields of youth: I saw fair boys bestriding steeds, I knew their forms in fancy weeds, Long, long concealed by sundering fates, Mates of my youth,--yet not my mates, Stronger and bolder far than I, With grace, with genius, well attired, And then as now from far admired, Followed with love They knew not of, With pa.s.sion cold and shy.

O joy, for what recoveries rare!

Renewed, I breathe Elysian air, See youth's glad mates in earliest bloom,-- Break not my dream, obtrusive tomb!

Or teach thou, Spring! the grand recoil Of life resurgent from the soil Wherein was dropped the mortal spoil.

SEASh.o.r.e

I heard or seemed to hear the chiding Sea Say, Pilgrim, why so late and slow to come?

Am I not always here, thy summer home?

Is not my voice thy music, morn and eve?

My breath thy healthful climate in the heats, My touch thy antidote, my bay thy bath?

Was ever building like my terraces?

Was ever couch magnificent as mine?

Lie on the warm rock-ledges, and there learn A little hut suffices like a town.

I make your sculptured architecture vain, Vain beside mine. I drive my wedges home, And carve the coastwise mountain into caves.

Lo! here is Rome and Nineveh and Thebes, Karnak and Pyramid and Giant's Stairs Half piled or prostrate; and my newest slab Older than all thy race.

Behold the Sea, The opaline, the plentiful and strong, Yet beautiful as is the rose in June, Fresh as the trickling rainbow of July; Sea full of food, the nourisher of kinds, Purger of earth, and medicine of men; Creating a sweet climate by my breath, Was.h.i.+ng out harms and griefs from memory, And, in my mathematic ebb and flow, Giving a hint of that which changes not.

Rich are the sea-G.o.ds:--who gives gifts but they?

They grope the sea for pearls, but more than pearls: They pluck Force thence, and give it to the wise.

For every wave is wealth to Daedalus, Wealth to the cunning artist who can work This matchless strength. Where shall he find, O waves!

A load your Atlas shoulders cannot lift?

I with my hammer pounding evermore The rocky coast, smite Andes into dust, Strewing my bed, and, in another age, Rebuild a continent of better men.

Then I unbar the doors: my paths lead out The exodus of nations: I disperse Men to all sh.o.r.es that front the h.o.a.ry main.

I too have arts and sorceries; Illusion dwells forever with the wave.

I know what spells are laid. Leave me to deal With credulous and imaginative man; For, though he scoop my water in his palm, A few rods off he deems it gems and clouds.

Planting strange fruits and suns.h.i.+ne on the sh.o.r.e, I make some coast alluring, some lone isle, To distant men, who must go there, or die.

SONG OF NATURE

Mine are the night and morning, The pits of air, the gulf of s.p.a.ce, The sportive sun, the gibbous moon, The innumerable days.

I hide in the solar glory, I am dumb in the pealing song, I rest on the pitch of the torrent, In slumber I am strong.

No numbers have counted my tallies, No tribes my house can fill, I sit by the s.h.i.+ning Fount of Life And pour the deluge still;

And ever by delicate powers Gathering along the centuries From race on race the rarest flowers, My wreath shall nothing miss.

And many a thousand summers My gardens ripened well, And light from meliorating stars With firmer glory fell.

I wrote the past in characters Of rock and fire the scroll, The building in the coral sea, The planting of the coal.

And thefts from satellites and rings And broken stars I drew, And out of spent and aged things I formed the world anew;

What time the G.o.ds kept carnival, Tricked out in star and flower, And in cramp elf and saurian forms They swathed their too much power.

Time and Thought were my surveyors, They laid their courses well, They boiled the sea, and piled the layers Of granite, marl and sh.e.l.l.

But he, the man-child glorious,-- Where tarries he the while?

The rainbow s.h.i.+nes his harbinger, The sunset gleams his smile.

My boreal lights leap upward, Forthright my planets roll, And still the man-child is not born, The summit of the whole.

Must time and tide forever run?

Will never my winds go sleep in the west?

Will never my wheels which whirl the sun And satellites have rest?

Too much of donning and doffing, Too slow the rainbow fades, I weary of my robe of snow, My leaves and my cascades;

I tire of globes and races, Too long the game is played; What without him is summer's pomp, Or winter's frozen shade?

I travail in pain for him, My creatures travail and wait; His couriers come by squadrons, He comes not to the gate.

Twice I have moulded an image, And thrice outstretched my hand, Made one of day and one of night And one of the salt sea-sand.

One in a Judaean manger, And one by Avon stream, One over against the mouths of Nile, And one in the Academe.

I moulded kings and saviors, And bards o'er kings to rule;-- But fell the starry influence short, The cup was never full.

Yet whirl the glowing wheels once more, And mix the bowl again; Seethe, Fate! the ancient elements, Heat, cold, wet, dry, and peace, and pain.

Let war and trade and creeds and song Blend, ripen race on race, The sunburnt world a man shall breed Of all the zones and countless days.

No ray is dimmed, no atom worn, My oldest force is good as new, And the fresh rose on yonder thorn Gives back the bending heavens in dew.

TWO RIVERS

Thy summer voice, Musketaquit, Repeats the music of the rain; But sweeter rivers pulsing flit Through thee, as thou through Concord Plain.

Thou in thy narrow banks art pent: The stream I love unbounded goes Through flood and sea and firmament; Through light, through life, it forward flows.