To-day / Ralph Waldo Emerson

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.

The World-Soul / Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thanks to the morning light,

Thanks to the seething sea,

To the uplands of New Hampshire,

To the green-haired forest free;

Thanks to each man of courage,

To the maids of holy mind,

To the boy with his games undaunted,

Who never looks behind.

The Snow-Storm / Ralph Waldo Emerson

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,

Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,

Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air

Hides hill and woods, the river, and the heaven,

And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.

The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet

Delated, all friends shut out, the housemates sit

Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed

In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

The Rhodora / Ralph Waldo Emerson

On being asked, Whence is the flower?

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,

I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,

Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,

To please the desert and the sluggish brook.

The purple petals, fallen in the pool,

The Problem / Ralph Waldo Emerson

I like a church; I like a cowl;

I love a prophet of the soul;

and on my heart monastic aisles

Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles;

Yet not for all his faith can see

Would I that cowled churchman be. 

The Day's Ration / Ralph Waldo Emerson

When I was born,

From all the seas of strength Fate filled a chalice,

Saying, This be thy portion, child; this chalice,

Less than a lily's, thou shalt daily draw

From my great arteries; nor less, nor more.

All substances the cunning chemist Time

Melts down into that liquor of my life,

The Bell / Ralph Waldo Emerson

I love thy music, mellow bell,

I love thine iron chime,

To life or death, to heaven or hell,

Which calls the sons of Time.

The Apology / Ralph Waldo Emerson

Think me not unkind and rude,

That I walk alone in grove and glen;

I go to the god of the wood

To fetch his word to men.

The Amulet / Ralph Waldo Emerson

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.

Sphynx / Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Sphynx is drowsy,

Her wings are furled,

Her ear is heavy,

She broods on the world.—

"Who'll tell me my secret

The ages have kept?

— I awaited the seer,

While they slumbered and slept;—

Song Of Nature / Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mine are the night and morning,

The pits of air, the gulf of space,

The sportive sun, the gibbous moon,

The innumerable days. 

Ode To Beauty / Ralph Waldo Emerson

Who gave thee, O Beauty!

The keys of this breast,

Too credulous lover

Of blest and unblest?

Say when in lapsed ages

Thee knew I of old;

Or what was the service

For which I was sold?

Fate / Ralph Waldo Emerson

DEEP in the man sits fast his fate

To mould his fortunes, mean or great:

Unknown to Cromwell as to me

Was Cromwell's measure or degree;

Unknown to him as to his horse,

Dæmonic Love / Ralph Waldo Emerson

Man was made of social earth,

Child and brother from his birth;

Tethered by a liquid cord

Of blood through veins of kindred poured,

Next his heart the fireside band

Of mother, father, sister, stand;

Dirge / Ralph Waldo Emerson

Knows he who tills this lonely field

To reap its scanty corn,

What mystic fruit his acres yield

At midnight and at morn?

Days / Ralph Waldo Emerson

Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,

Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,

And marching single in an endless file,

Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.

Concord Hymn / Ralph Waldo Emerson

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmers stood,

And fired the shot heard round the world.

Compensation / Ralph Waldo Emerson

Why should I keep holiday,

When other men have none?

Why but because when these are gay,

I sit and mourn alone.

Celestial Love / Ralph Waldo Emerson

Higher far,

Upward, into the pure realm,

Over sun or star,

Over the flickering Dæmon film,

Thou must mount for love,—

Into vision which all form

In one only form dissolves;

Blight / Ralph Waldo Emerson

Give me truths,

For I am weary of the surfaces,

And die of inanition. If I knew

Only the herbs and simples of the wood,

Rue, cinquefoil, gill, vervain, and pimpernel,

Blue-vetch, and trillium, hawkweed, sassafras,

Milkweeds, and murky brakes, quaint pipes and sundew,