The complete works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Poems [Vol. 9]

FRAGMENTS ON NATURE AND LIFE

NATURE

THE patient Pan, Drunken with nectar, Sleeps or feigns slumber, Drowsily humming Music to the march of time. This poor tooting, creaking cricket, Pan, half asleep, rolling over His great body in the grass, Tooting, creaking, Feigns to sleep, sleeping never; 'T is his manner, Well he knows his own affair, Piling mountain chains of phlegm On the nervous brain of man, As he holds down central fires Under Alps and Andes cold; Haply else we could not live, Life would be too wild an ode.1Open page

COME search the wood for flowers,— Wild tea and wild pea,

Grapevine and succory, Coreopsis And liatris, Flaunting in their bowers; Grass with green flag half-mast high, Succory to match the sky, Columbine with horn of honey, Scented fern and agrimony; Forest full of essences Fit for fairy presences, Peppermint and sassafras, Sweet fern, mint and vernal grass, Panax, black birch, sugar maple, Sweet and scent for Dian's table, Elder-blow, sarsaparilla, Wild rose, lily, dry vanilla,— Spices in the plants that run To bring their first fruits to the sun. Earliest heats that follow frore Nervèd leaf of hellebore, Sweet willow, checkerberry red, With its savory leaf for bread. Silver birch and black With the selfsame spice Found in polygala root and rind, Sassafras, fern, benzöine, Mouse-ear, cowslip, wintergreen, Which by aroma may compel The frost to spare, what scents so well.

WHERE the fungus broad and red Lifts its head, Like poisoned loaf of elfin bread, Where the aster grew With the social goldenrod, In a chapel, which the dew Made beautiful for God:— O what would Nature say? She spared no speech to-day: The fungus and the bulrush spoke, Answered the pine-tree and the oak, The wizard South blew down the glen, Filled the straits and filled the wide, Each maple leaf turned up its silver side. All things shine in his smoky ray, And all we see are pictures high; Many a high hillside, While oaks of pride Climb to their tops, And boys run out upon their leafy ropes. The maple street In the houseless wood, Voices followed after, Every shrub and grape leaf Rang with fairy laughter. I have heard them fall Like the strain of all King Oberon's minstrelsy.

Would hear the everlasting And know the only strong? You must worship fasting, You must listen long. Words of the air Which birds of the air Carry aloft, below, around, To the isles of the deep, To the snow-capped steep, To the thundercloud.

FOR Nature, true and like in every place, Will hint her secret in a garden patch, Or in lone corners of a doleful heath, As in the Andes watched by fleets at sea, Or the sky-piercing horns of Himmaleh; And, when I would recall the scenes I dreamed On Adirondac steeps, I know Small need have I of Turner or Daguerre, Assured to find the token once again In silver lakes that unexhausted gleam And peaceful woods beside my cottage door.

WHAT all the books of ages paint, I have. What prayers and dreams of youthful genius feign, I daily dwell in, and am not so blind But I can see the elastic tent of day Belike has wider hospitality Than my few needs exhaust, and bids me read The quaint devices on its mornings gay. Yet Nature will not be in full possessed, And they who truliest love her, heralds are And harbingers of a majestic race, Who, having more absorbed, more largely yield, And walk on earth as the sun walks in the sphere.

BUT never yet the man was found Who could the mystery expound, Though Adam, born when oaks were young, Endured, the Bible says, as long; But when at last the patriarch died The Gordian noose was still untied. He left, though goodly centuries old, Meek Nature's secret still untold.

ATOM from atom yawns as far As moon from earth, or star from star.

WHEN all their blooms the meadows flaunt To deck the morning of the year, Why tinge thy lustres jubilant With forecast or with fear?

Teach me your mood, O patient stars! Who climb each night the ancient sky, Leaving on space no shade, no scars, No trace of age, no fear to die.

THE sun athwart the cloud thought it no sin To use my land to put his rainbows in.

FOR joy and beauty planted it, With faerie gardens cheered, And boding Fancy haunted it With men and women weird.

WHAT central flowing forces, say, Make up thy splendor, matchless day?

DAY by day for her darlings to her much she added more; In her hundred-gated Thebes every chamber was a door, A door to something grander,—loftier walls, and vaster floor.

SHE paints with white and red the moors To draw the nations out of doors.

A SCORE of airy miles will smooth Rough Monadnoc to a gem.

THE EARTH

OUR eyeless bark sails free Though with boom and spar Andes, Alp or Himmalee, Strikes never moon or star.1Open page

THE HEAVENS

WISP and meteor nightly falling, But the Stars of God remain.

TRANSITION

SEE yonder leafless trees against the sky, How they diffuse themselves into the air, And, ever subdividing, separate Limbs into branches, branches into twigs, As if they loved the element, and hasted To dissipate their being into it.

PARKS and ponds are good by day; I do not delight In black acres of the night, Nor my unseasoned step disturbs The sleeps of trees or dreams of herbs.

IN Walden wood the chickadee Runs round the pine and maple tree Intent on insect slaughter: O tufted entomologist! Devour as many as you list, Then drink in Walden water.

THE low December vault in June be lifted high, And largest clouds be flakes of down in that enormous sky.

THE GARDEN

MANY things the garden shows, And pleased I stray From tree to tree Watching the white pear-bloom, Bee-infested quince or plum. I could walk days, years, away Till the slow ripening, secular tree Had reached its fruiting-time, Nor think it long.

SOLAR insect on the wing In the garden murmuring, Soothing with thy summer horn Swains by winter pinched and worn.

BIRDS

DARLINGS of children and of bard, Perfect kinds by vice unmarred, All of worth and beauty set Gems in Nature's cabinet; These the fables she esteems Reality most like to dreams.

Welcome back, you little nations, Far-travelled in the south plantations; Bring your music and rhythmic flight, Your colors for our eyes' delight: Freely nestle in our roof, Weave your chamber weatherproof; And your enchanting manners bring And your autumnal gathering. Exchange in conclave general Greetings kind to each and all, Conscious each of duty done And unstainèd as the sun.1Open page

WATER

THE water understands Civilization well; It wets my foot, but prettily It chills my life, but wittily, It is not disconcerted, It is not broken-hearted: Well used, it decketh joy, Adorneth, doubleth joy: Ill used, it will destroy, In perfect time and measure With a face of golden pleasure Elegantly destroy.

NAHANT

ALL day the waves assailed the rock, I heard no church-bell chime, The sea-beat scorns the minster clock And breaks the glass of Time.1Open page

SUNRISE

WOULD you know what joy is hid In our green Musketaquid, And for travelled eyes what charms Draw us to these meadow farms, Come and I will show you all Makes each day a festival. Stand upon this pasture hill, Face the eastern star until The slow eye of heaven shall show The world above, the world below.

Behold the miracle! Thou saw'st but now the twilight sad And stood beneath the firmament, A watchman in a dark gray tent, Waiting till God create the earth,— Behold the new majestic birth!

The mottled clouds, like scraps of wool, Steeped in the light are beautiful. What majestic stillness broods Over these colored solitudes. Sleeps the vast East in pleasèd peace, Up the far mountain walls the streams increase Inundating the heaven With spouting streams and waves of light Which round the floating isles unite:— See the world below Baptized with the pure element, A clear and glorious firmament Touched with life by every beam. I share the good with every flower, I drink the nectar of the hour:— This is not the ancient earth Whereof old chronicles relate The tragic tales of crime and fate; But rather, like its beads of dew And dew-bent violets, fresh and new, An exhalation of the time.1Open page

NIGHT IN JUNE

I LEFT my dreary page and sallied forth, Received the fair inscriptions of the night;

The moon was making amber of the world, Glittered with silver every cottage pane, The trees were rich, yet ominous with gloom. The meadows broad From ferns and grapes and from the folded flowers Sent a nocturnal fragrance; harlot flies Flashed their small fires in air, or held their court In fairy groves of herds-grass.

HE lives not who can refuse me; All my force saith, Come and use me: A gleam of sun, a summer rain, And all the zone is green again.

SEEMS, though the soft sheen all enchants, Cheers the rough crag and mournful dell, As if on such stern forms and haunts A wintry storm more fitly fell.

PUT in, drive home the sightless wedges And split to flakes the crystal ledges.

MAIA

ILLUSION works impenetrable, Weaving webs innumerable, Her gay pictures never fail, Crowds each on other, veil on veil, Charmer who will be believed By man who thirsts to be deceived.

ILLUSIONS like the tints of pearl, Or changing colors of the sky, Or ribbons of a dancing girl That mend her beauty to the eye.

THE cold gray down upon the quinces lieth And the poor spinners weave their webs thereon To share the sunshine that so spicy is.

SAMSON stark, at Dagon's knee, Gropes for columns strong as he; When his ringlets grew and curled, Groped for axle of the world.

BUT Nature whistled with all her winds, Did as she pleased and went her way.1Open page

LIFE

A TRAIN of gay and clouded days Dappled with joy and grief and praise, Beauty to fire us, saints to save, Escort us to a little grave.

No fate, save by the victim's fault, is low, For God hath writ all dooms magnificent, So guilt not traverses his tender will.

AROUND the man who seeks a noble end, Not angels but divinities attend.1Open page

FROM high to higher forces The scale of power uprears, The heroes on their horses, The gods upon their spheres.

THIS shining moment is an edifice Which the Omnipotent cannot rebuild.

ROOMY Eternity Casts her schemes rarely, And an aeon allows For each quality and part Of the multitudinous And many-chambered heart.

THE beggar begs by God's command, And gifts awake when givers sleep, Swords cannot cut the giving hand Nor stab the love that orphans keep.

IN the chamber, on the stairs, Lurking dumb, Go and come Lemurs and Lars.1Open page

SUCH another peerless queen Only could her mirror show.

EASY to match what others do, Perform the feat as well as they; Hard to out-do the brave, the true, And find a loftier way: The school decays, the learning spoils Because of the sons of wine; How snatch the stripling from their toils?— Yet can one ray of truth divine The blaze of revellers' feasts outshine.

OF all wit's uses the main one Is to live well with who has none.

THE tongue is prone to lose the way, Not so the pen, for in a letter We have not better things to say, But surely say them better.1Open page

SHE walked in flowers around my field As June herself around the sphere.

FRIENDS to me are frozen wine; I wait the sun on them should shine.1Open page

YOU shall not love me for what daily spends; You shall not know me in the noisy street, Where I, as others, follow petty ends; Nor when in fair saloons we chance to meet; Nor when I 'm jaded, sick, anxious or mean. But love me then and only, when you know Me for the channel of the rivers of God From deep ideal fontal heavens that flow.

To and fro the Genius flies, A light which plays and hovers Over the maiden's head And dips sometimes as low as to her eyes. Of her faults I take no note, Fault and folly are not mine; Comes the Genius,—all's forgot, Replunged again into that upper sphere He scatters wide and wild its lustres here.2Open page

LOVE Asks nought his brother cannot give; Asks nothing, but does all receive. Love calls not to his aid events; He to his wants can well suffice: Asks not of others soft consents, Nor kind occasion without eyes; Nor plots to ope or bolt a gate, Nor heeds Condition's iron walls,— Where he goes, goes before him Fate; Whom he uniteth, God installs; Instant and perfect his access To the dear object of his thought, Though foes and land and seas between Himself and his love intervene.1Open page

THE brave Empedocles, defying fools, Pronounced the word that mortals hate to hear— "I am divine, I am not mortal made; I am superior to my human weeds." Not Sense but Reason is the Judge of truth; Reason 's twofold, part human, part divine; That human part may be described and taught, The other portion language cannot speak.2Open page

TELL men what they knew before; Paint the prospect from their door.

HIM strong Genius urged to roam, Stronger Custom brought him home.

THAT each should in his house abide, Therefore was the world so wide.

THOU shalt make thy house The temple of a nation's vows. Spirits of a higher strain Who sought thee once shall seek again. I detected many a god Forth already on the road, Ancestors of beauty come In thy breast to make a home.

THE archangel Hope Looks to the azure cope, Waits through dark ages for the morn, Defeated day by day, but unto victory born.

As the drop feeds its fated flower, As finds its Alp the snowy shower, Child of the omnific Need, Hurled into life to do a deed, Man drinks the water, drinks the light.

EVER the Rock of Ages melts Into the mineral air, To be the quarry whence to build Thought and its mansions fair.

Go if thou wilt, ambrosial flower, Go match thee with thy seeming peers; I will wait Heaven's perfect hour Through the innumerable years.

YES, sometimes to the sorrow-stricken Shall his own sorrow seem impertinent, A thing that takes no more root in the world Than doth the traveller's shadow on the rock.

BUT if thou do thy best, Without remission, without rest, And invite the sunbeam, And abhor to feign or seem Even to those who thee should love And thy behavior approve; If thou go in thine own likeness, Be it health, or be it sickness; If thou go as thy father's son, If thou wear no mask or lie, Dealing purely and nakedly,—

ASCENDING thorough just degrees To a consummate holiness, As angel blind to trespass done, And bleaching all souls like the sun.

FROM the stores of eldest matter, The deep-eyed flame, obedient water, Transparent air, all-feeding earth, He took the flower of all their worth, And, best with best in sweet consent, Combined a new temperament.

REX

THE bard and mystic held me for their own, I filled the dream of sad, poetic maids, I took the friendly noble by the hand, I was the trustee of the hand-cart man, The brother of the fisher, porter, swain, And these from the crowd's edge well pleased beheld The service done to me as done to them.1Open page

WITH the key of the secret he marches faster, From strength to strength, and for night brings day; While classes or tribes, too weak to master The flowing conditions of life, give way.

SUUM CUIQUE

WILT thou seal up the avenues of ill? Pay every debt as if God wrote the bill.

IF curses be the wage of love, Hide in thy skies, thou fruitless Jove, Not to be named: It is clear Why the gods will not appear; They are ashamed.

WHEN wrath and terror changed Jove's regal port, And the rash-leaping thunderbolt fell short.

SHUN passion, fold the hands of thrift, Sit still and Truth is near: Suddenly it will uplift Your eyelids to the sphere: Wait a little, you shall see The portraiture of things to be.

THE rules to men made evident By Him who built the day, The columns of the firmament Not firmer based than they.

ON bravely through the sunshine and the showers! Time hath his work to do and we have ours.