Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson Part 9

'Fairest, choose the fairest members Of our lithe society; June's glories and September's Show our love and piety.

'Thou shalt command us all,-- April's cowslip, summer's clover, To the gentian in the fall, Blue-eyed pet of blue-eyed lover.

'O come, then, quickly come!

We are budding, we are blowing; And the wind that we perfume Sings a tune that's worth the knowing.'

TO ELLEN

And Ellen, when the graybeard years Have brought us to life's evening hour, And all the crowded Past appears A tiny scene of sun and shower,

Then, if I read the page aright Where Hope, the soothsayer, reads our lot, Thyself shalt own the page was bright, Well that we loved, woe had we not,

When Mirth is dumb and Flattery's fled, And mute thy music's dearest tone, When all but Love itself is dead And all but deathless Reason gone.

TO EVA

O fair and stately maid, whose eyes Were kindled in the upper skies At the same torch that lighted mine; For so I must interpret still Thy sweet dominion o'er my will, A sympathy divine.

Ah! let me blameless gaze upon Features that seem at heart my own; Nor fear those watchful sentinels, Who charm the more their glance forbids, Chaste-glowing, underneath their lids, With fire that draws while it repels.

LINES

WRITTEN BY ELLEN LOUISA TUCKER SHORTLY BEFORE HER MARRIAGE TO MR. EMERSON

Love scatters oil On Life's dark sea, Sweetens its toil-- Our helmsman he.

Around him hover Odorous clouds; Under this cover His arrows he shrouds.

The cloud was around me, I knew not why Such sweetness crowned me.

While Time shot by.

No pain was within, But calm delight, Like a world without sin, Or a day without night.

The shafts of the G.o.d Were tipped with down, For they drew no blood, And they knit no frown.

I knew of them not Until Cupid laughed loud, And saying "You're caught!"

Flew off in the cloud.

O then I awoke, And I lived but to sigh, Till a clear voice spoke,-- And my tears are dry.

THE VIOLET

BY ELLEN LOUISA TUCKER

Why lingerest thou, pale violet, to see the dying year; Are Autumn's blasts fit music for thee, fragile one, to hear; Will thy clear blue eye, upward bent, still keep its chastened glow, Still tearless lift its slender form above the wintry snow?

Why wilt thou live when none around reflects thy pensive ray?

Thou bloomest here a lonely thing in the clear autumn day.

The tall green trees, that shelter thee, their last gay dress put on; There will be nought to shelter thee when their sweet leaves are gone.

O Violet, like thee, how blest could I lie down and die, When summer light is fading, and autumn breezes sigh; When Winter reigned I'd close my eye, but wake with bursting Spring, And live with living nature, a pure rejoicing thing.

I had a sister once who seemed just like a violet; Her morning sun shone bright and calmly purely set; When the violets were in their shrouds, and Summer in its pride, She laid her hopes at rest, and in the year's rich beauty died.

THE AMULET

Your picture smiles as first it smiled; The ring you gave is still the same; Your letter tells, O changing child!

No tidings _since_ it came.

Give me an amulet That keeps intelligence with you,-- Red when you love, and rosier red, And when you love not, pale and blue.

Alas! that neither bonds nor vows Can certify possession; Torments me still the fear that love Died in its last expression.

THINE EYES STILL s.h.i.+NED

Thine eyes still s.h.i.+ned for me, though far I lonely roved the land or sea: As I behold yon evening star, Which yet beholds not me.

This morn I climbed the misty hill And roamed the pastures through; How danced thy form before my path Amidst the deep-eyed dew!

When the redbird spread his sable wing, And showed his side of flame; When the rosebud ripened to the rose, In both I read thy name.

EROS

The sense of the world is short,-- Long and various the report,-- To love and be beloved; Men and G.o.ds have not outlearned it; And, how oft soe'er they've turned it, Not to be improved.

HERMIONE

On a mound an Arab lay, And sung his sweet regrets And told his amulets: The summer bird His sorrow heard, And, when he heaved a sigh profound, The sympathetic swallow swept the ground.

'If it be, as they said, she was not fair, Beauty's not beautiful to me, But sceptred genius, aye inorbed, Culminating in her sphere.

This Hermione absorbed The l.u.s.tre of the land and ocean, Hills and islands, cloud and tree, In her form and motion.