Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson Part 40

I rake no coffined clay, nor publish wide The resurrection of departed pride.

Safe in their ancient crannies, dark and deep, Let kings and conquerors, saints and soldiers sleep-- Late in the world,--too late perchance for fame, Just late enough to reap abundant blame,-- I choose a novel theme, a bold abuse Of critic charters, an unlaurelled Muse.

Old mouldy men and books and names and lands Disgust my reason and defile my hands.

I had as lief respect an ancient shoe, As love old things _for age_, and hate the new.

I spurn the Past, my mind disdains its nod, Nor kneels in homage to so mean a G.o.d.

I laugh at those who, while they gape and gaze, The bald antiquity of China praise.

Youth is (whatever cynic tubs pretend) The fault that boys and nations soonest mend.

1824.

FAME

Ah Fate, cannot a man Be wise without a beard?

East, West, from Beer to Dan, Say, was it never heard That wisdom might in youth be gotten, Or wit be ripe before 't was rotten?

He pays too high a price For knowledge and for fame Who sells his sinews to be wise, His teeth and bones to buy a name, And crawls through life a paralytic To earn the praise of bard and critic.

Were it not better done, To dine and sleep through forty years; Be loved by few; be feared by none; Laugh life away; have wine for tears; And take the mortal leap undaunted, Content that all we asked was granted?

But Fate will not permit The seed of G.o.ds to die, Nor suffer sense to win from wit Its guerdon in the sky, Nor let us hide, whate'er our pleasure, The world's light underneath a measure.

Go then, sad youth, and s.h.i.+ne; Go, sacrifice to Fame; Put youth, joy, health upon the shrine, And life to fan the flame; Being for Seeming bravely barter And die to Fame a happy martyr.

1824.

THE SUMMONS

A sterner errand to the silken troop Has quenched the uneasy blush that warmed my cheek; I am commissioned in my day of joy To leave my woods and streams and the sweet sloth Of prayer and song that were my dear delight, To leave the rudeness of my woodland life, Sweet twilight walks and midnight solitude And kind acquaintance with the morning stars And the glad hey-day of my household hours, The innocent mirth which sweetens daily bread, Railing in love to those who rail again, By mind's industry sharpening the love of life-- Books, Muses, Study, fireside, friends and love, I loved ye with true love, so fare ye well!

I was a boy; boyhood slid gayly by And the impatient years that trod on it Taught me new lessons in the lore of life.

I've learned the sum of that sad history All woman-born do know, that hoped-for days, Days that come dancing on fraught with delights, Dash our blown hopes as they limp heavily by.

But I, the bantling of a country Muse, Abandon all those toys with speed to obey The King whose meek amba.s.sador I go.

1826.

THE RIVER

And I behold once more My old familiar haunts; here the blue river, The same blue wonder that my infant eye Admired, sage doubting whence the traveller came,-- Whence brought his sunny bubbles ere he washed The fragrant flag-roots in my father's fields, And where thereafter in the world he went.

Look, here he is, unaltered, save that now He hath broke his banks and flooded all the vales With his redundant waves.

Here is the rock where, yet a simple child, I caught with bended pin my earliest fish, Much triumphing,--and these the fields Over whose flowers I chased the b.u.t.terfly A blooming hunter of a fairy fine.

And hark! where overhead the ancient crows Hold their sour conversation in the sky:-- These are the same, but I am not the same, But wiser than I was, and wise enough Not to regret the changes, tho' they cost Me many a sigh. Oh, call not Nature dumb; These trees and stones are audible to me, These idle flowers, that tremble in the wind, I understand their faery syllables, And all their sad significance. The wind, That rustles down the well-known forest road-- It hath a sound more eloquent than speech.

The stream, the trees, the gra.s.s, the sighing wind, All of them utter sounds of 'monishment And grave parental love.

They are not of our race, they seem to say, And yet have knowledge of our moral race, And somewhat of majestic sympathy, Something of pity for the puny clay, That holds and boasts the immeasurable mind.

I feel as I were welcome to these trees After long months of weary wandering, Acknowledged by their hospitable boughs; They know me as their son, for side by side, They were coeval with my ancestors, Adorned with them my country's primitive times, And soon may give my dust their funeral shade.

CONCORD, June, 1827.

GOOD HOPE

The cup of life is not so shallow That we have drained the best, That all the wine at once we swallow And lees make all the rest.

Maids of as soft a bloom shall marry As Hymen yet hath blessed, And fairer forms are in the quarry Than Phidias released.

1827.

LINES TO ELLEN

Tell me, maiden, dost thou use Thyself thro' Nature to diffuse?

All the angles of the coast Were tenanted by thy sweet ghost, Bore thy colors every flower, Thine each leaf and berry bore; All wore thy badges and thy favors In their scent or in their savors, Every moth with painted wing, Every bird in carolling, The wood-boughs with thy manners waved, The rocks uphold thy name engraved, The sod throbbed friendly to my feet, And the sweet air with thee was sweet.

The saffron cloud that floated warm Studied thy motion, took thy form, And in his airy road benign Recalled thy skill in bold design, Or seemed to use his privilege To gaze o'er the horizon's edge, To search where now thy beauty glowed, Or made what other purlieus proud.

1829.

SECURITY

Though her eye seek other forms And a glad delight below, Yet the love the world that warms Bids for me her bosom glow.

She must love me till she find Another heart as large and true.

Her soul is frank as the ocean wind, And the world has only two.

If Nature hold another heart That knows a purer flame than me, I too therein could challenge part And learn of love a new degree.

1829.

A dull uncertain brain, But gifted yet to know That G.o.d has cherubim who go Singing an immortal strain, Immortal here below.

I know the mighty bards, I listen when they sing, And now I know The secret store Which these explore When they with torch of genius pierce The tenfold clouds that cover The riches of the universe From G.o.d's adoring lover.

And if to me it is not given To fetch one ingot thence Of the unfading gold of Heaven His merchants may dispense, Yet well I know the royal mine, And know the sparkle of its ore, Know Heaven's truth from lies that s.h.i.+ne-- Explored they teach us to explore.

1831.

A MOUNTAIN GRAVE

Why fear to die And let thy body lie Under the flowers of June, Thy body food For the ground-worms' brood And thy grave smiled on by the visiting moon.