Ralph Waldo Emerson

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.

It is time to be old, To take in sail:— The god of bounds, Who sets to seas a shore, Came to me in his fatal rounds, And said: “No more! No farther shoot Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root. Fancy departs: no more invent; Contract thy firmament To compass of a tent. There’s not enough for this and that, Make thy option which of two; Economize the failing river, Not the less revere the Giver, Leave the many and hold the few. Timely wise accept the terms, Soften the fall with wary foot; A little while Still plan and smile, And,—fault of novel germs,— Mature the unfallen fruit. Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires, Bad husbands of their fires, Who, when they gave thee breath, Failed to bequeath The needful sinew stark as once, The Baresark marrow to thy bones, But left a legacy of ebbing veins, Inconstant heat and nerveless reins,— Amid the Muses, left thee deaf and dumb, Amid the gladiators, halt and numb.” As the bird trims her to the gale, I trim myself to the storm of time, I man the rudder, reef the sail, Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime: “Lowly faithful, banish fear, Right onward drive unharmed; The port, well worth the cruise, is near, And every wave is charmed.”

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 hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, And veils the farm-house at the garden's end. The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed In a tumultuous privacy of storm. Come see the north wind's masonry. Out of an unseen quarry evermore Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer Curves his white bastions with projected roof Round every windward stake, or tree, or door. Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he For number or proportion. Mockingly, On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths; A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn; Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall, Maugre the farmer's sighs; and, at the gate, A tapering turret overtops the work. And when his hours are numbered, and the world Is all his own, retiring, as he were not, Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone, Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work, The frolic architecture of the snow.

The debt is paid, The verdict said, The Furies laid, The plague is stayed, All fortunes made; Turn the key and bolt the door, Sweet is death forevermore. Nor haughty hope, nor swart chagrin, Nor murdering hate, can enter in. All is now secure and fast; Not the gods can shake the Past; Flies-to the adamantine door Bolted down forevermore. None can re-enter there,— No thief so politic, No Satan with a royal trick Steal in by window, chink, or hole, To bind or unbind, add what lacked, Insert a leaf, or forge a name, New-face or finish what is packed, Alter or mend eternal Fact.

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.

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? When first my eyes saw thee, I found me thy thrall, By magical drawings, Sweet tyrant of all! I drank at thy fountain False waters of thirst; Thou intimate stranger, Thou latest and first! Thy dangerous glances Make women of men; New-born, we are melting Into nature again. Lavish, lavish promiser, Nigh persuading gods to err! Guest of million painted forms, Which in turn thy glory warms! The frailest leaf, the mossy bark, The acorn’s cup, the raindrop’s arc, The swinging spider’s silver line, The ruby of the drop of wine, The shining pebble of the pond, Thou inscribest with a bond In thy momentary play, Would bankrupt nature to repay. Ah, what avails it To hide or to shun Whom the Infinite One Hath granted his throne? The heaven high over Is the deep’s lover; The sun and sea, Informed by thee, Before me run And draw me on, Yet fly me still, As Fate refuses To me the heart Fate for me chooses. Is it that my opulent soul Was mingled from the generous whole; Sea-valleys and the deep of skies Furnished several supplies; And the sands whereof I’m made Draw me to them, self-betrayed? I turn the proud portfolio Which holds the grand designs Of Salvator, of Guercino, And Piranesi’s lines. I hear the lofty paeans Of the masters of the shell, Who heard the starry music And recount the numbers well; Olympian bards who sung Divine Ideas below, Which always find us young And always keep us so. Oft in streets or humblest places, I detect far-wandered graces, Which, from Eden wide astray, In lowly homes have lost their way. Thee gliding through the sea of form, Like the lightning through the storm, Somewhat not to be possessed, Somewhat not to be caressed, No feet so fleet could ever find, No perfect form could ever bind. Thou eternal fugitive, Hovering over all that live, Quick and skilful to inspire Sweet, extravagant desire, Starry space and lily-bell Filling with thy roseate smell, Wilt not give the lips to taste Of the nectar which thou hast. All that’s good and great with thee Works in close conspiracy; Thou hast bribed the dark and lonely To report thy features only, And the cold and purple morning Itself with thoughts of thee adorning; The leafy dell, the city mart, Equal trophies of thine art; E’en the flowing azure air Thou hast touched for my despair; And, if I languish into dreams, Again I meet the ardent beams. Queen of things! I dare not die In Being’s deeps past ear and eye; Lest there I find the same deceiver. And be the sport of Fate forever. Dread Power, but dear! if God thou be, Unmake me quite, or give thyself to me!

Though loath to grieve The evil time's sole patriot, I cannot leave My honied thought For the priest's cant, Or statesman's rant. If I refuse My study for their politique, Which at the best is trick, The angry Muse Puts confusion in my brain. But who is he that prates Of the culture of mankind, Of better arts and life? Go, blindworm, go, Behold the famous States Harrying Mexico With rifle and with knife! Or who, with accent bolder, Dare praise the freedom-loving mountaineer? I found by thee, O rushing Contoocook! And in thy valleys, Agiochook! The jackals of the negro-holder. The God who made New Hampshire Taunted the lofty land With little men; — Small bat and wren House in the oak: — If earth-fire cleave The upheaved land, and bury the folk, The southern crocodile would grieve. Virtue palters; Right is hence; Freedom praised, but hid; Funeral eloquence Rattles the coffin-lid. What boots thy zeal, O glowing friend, That would indignant rend The northland from the south? Wherefore? to what good end? Boston Bay and Bunker Hill Would serve things still; — Things are of the snake. The horseman serves the horse, The neat-herd serves the neat, The merchant serves the purse, The eater serves his meat; 'T is the day of the chattel Web to weave, and corn to grind; Things are in the saddle, And ride mankind. There are two laws discrete, Not reconciled,— Law for man, and law for thing; The last builds town and fleet, But it runs wild, And doth the man unking. 'T is fit the forest fall, The steep be graded, The mountain tunnelled, The sand shaded, The orchard planted, The glebe tilled, The prairie granted, The steamer built. Let man serve law for man; Live for friendship, live for love, For truth's and harmony's behoof; The state may follow how it can, As Olympus follows Jove. Yet do not I implore The wrinkled shopman to my sounding woods, Nor bid the unwilling senator Ask votes of thrushes in the solitudes. Every one to his chosen work; — Foolish hands may mix and mar; Wise and sure the issues are. Round they roll till dark is light, Sex to sex, and even to odd; — The over-god Who marries Right to Might, Who peoples, unpeoples, — He who exterminates Races by stronger races, Black by white faces, — Knows to bring honey Out of the lion; Grafts gentlest scion On pirate and Turk. The Cossack eats Poland, Like stolen fruit; Her last noble is ruined, Her last poet mute; Straight into double band The victors divide; Half for freedom strike and stand; — The astonished Muse finds thousands at her side.

Who knows this or that? Hark in the wall to the rat: Since the world was, he has gnawed; Of his wisdom, of his fraud What dost thou know? In the wretched little beast Is life and heart, Child and parent, Not without relation To fruitful field and sun and moon. What art thou? His wicked eye Is cruel to thy cruelty.

Bulkeley, Hunt, Willard, Hosmer, Meriam, Flint, Possessed the land which rendered to their toil Hay, corn, roots, hemp, flax, apples, wool, and wood. Each of these landlords walked amidst his farm, Saying, “’Tis mine, my children’s and my name’s. How sweet the west wind sounds in my own trees! How graceful climb those shadows on my hill! I fancy these pure waters and the flags Know me, as does my dog: we sympathize; And, I affirm, my actions smack of the soil.” Where are these men? Asleep beneath their grounds: And strangers, fond as they, their furrows plough. Earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful boys Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs; Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet Clear of the grave. They added ridge to valley, brook to pond, And sighed for all that bounded their domain; “This suits me for a pasture; that’s my park; We must have clay, lime, gravel, granite-ledge, And misty lowland, where to go for peat. The land is well,—lies fairly to the south. ’Tis good, when you have crossed the sea and back, To find the sitfast acres where you left them.” Ah! the hot owner sees not Death, who adds Him to his land, a lump of mould the more. Hear what the Earth say:— EARTH-SONG “Mine and yours; Mine, not yours. Earth endures; Stars abide— Shine down in the old sea; Old are the shores; But where are old men? I who have seen much, Such have I never seen. “The lawyer’s deed Ran sure, In tail, To them and to their heirs Who shall succeed, Without fail, Forevermore. “Here is the land, Shaggy with wood, With its old valley, Mound and flood. But the heritors?— Fled like the flood's foam. The lawyer and the laws, And the kingdom, Clean swept herefrom. “They called me theirs, Who so controlled me; Yet every one Wished to stay, and is gone, How am I theirs, If they cannot hold me, But I hold them?” When I heard the Earth-song I was no longer brave; My avarice cooled Like lust in the chill of the grave.

Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home: Thou art not my friend, and I'm not thine. Long through thy weary crowds I roam; A river-ark on the ocean brine, Long I've been tossed like the driven foam; But now, proud world! I'm going home. Good-bye to Flattery's fawning face; To Grandeur with his wise grimace; To upstart Wealth's averted eye; To supple Office, low and high; To crowded halls, to court and street; To frozen hearts and hasting feet; To those who go, and those who come; Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home. I am going to my own hearth-stone, Bosomed in yon green hills alone, — A secret nook in a pleasant land, Whose groves the frolic fairies planned; Where arches green, the livelong day, Echo the blackbird's roundelay, And vulgar feet have never trod A spot that is sacred to thought and God. O, when I am safe in my sylvan home, I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome; And when I am stretched beneath the pines, Where the evening star so holy shines, I laugh at the lore and the pride of man, At the sophist schools, and the learned clan; For what are they all, in their high conceit, When man in the bush with God may meet?