Poems / Household Edition

     I heard or seemed to hear the chiding Sea
     Say, Pilgrim, why so late and slow to come?
     Am I not always here, thy summer home?
     Is not my voice thy music, morn and eve?
     My breath thy healthful climate in the heats,
     My touch thy antidote, my bay thy bath?
     Was ever building like my terraces?
     Was ever couch magnificent as mine?
     Lie on the warm rock-ledges, and there learn
     A little hut suffices like a town.
     I make your sculptured architecture vain,
     Vain beside mine. I drive my wedges home,
     And carve the coastwise mountain into caves.
     Lo! here is Rome and Nineveh and Thebes,
     Karnak and Pyramid and Giant's Stairs
     Half piled or prostrate; and my newest slab
     Older than all thy race.

                 Behold the Sea,
     The opaline, the plentiful and strong,
     Yet beautiful as is the rose in June,
     Fresh as the trickling rainbow of July;
     Sea full of food, the nourisher of kinds,
     Purger of earth, and medicine of men;
     Creating a sweet climate by my breath,
     Washing out harms and griefs from memory,
     And, in my mathematic ebb and flow,
     Giving a hint of that which changes not.
     Rich are the sea-gods:—who gives gifts but they?
     They grope the sea for pearls, but more than pearls:
     They pluck Force thence, and give it to the wise.
     For every wave is wealth to Daedalus,
     Wealth to the cunning artist who can work
     This matchless strength. Where shall he find, O waves!
     A load your Atlas shoulders cannot lift?

       I with my hammer pounding evermore
     The rocky coast, smite Andes into dust,
     Strewing my bed, and, in another age,
     Rebuild a continent of better men.
     Then I unbar the doors: my paths lead out
     The exodus of nations: I disperse
     Men to all shores that front the hoary main.

       I too have arts and sorceries;
     Illusion dwells forever with the wave.
     I know what spells are laid. Leave me to deal
     With credulous and imaginative man;
     For, though he scoop my water in his palm,
     A few rods off he deems it gems and clouds.
     Planting strange fruits and sunshine on the shore,
     I make some coast alluring, some lone isle,
     To distant men, who must go there, or die.

     Mine are the night and morning,
     The pits of air, the gulf of space,
     The sportive sun, the gibbous moon,
     The innumerable days.

     I hide in the solar glory,
     I am dumb in the pealing song,
     I rest on the pitch of the torrent,
     In slumber I am strong.

     No numbers have counted my tallies,
     No tribes my house can fill,
     I sit by the shining Fount of Life
     And pour the deluge still;

     And ever by delicate powers
     Gathering along the centuries
     From race on race the rarest flowers,
     My wreath shall nothing miss.

     And many a thousand summers
     My gardens ripened well,
     And light from meliorating stars
     With firmer glory fell.

     I wrote the past in characters
     Of rock and fire the scroll,
     The building in the coral sea,
     The planting of the coal.

     And thefts from satellites and rings
     And broken stars I drew,
     And out of spent and aged things
     I formed the world anew;

     What time the gods kept carnival,
     Tricked out in star and flower,
     And in cramp elf and saurian forms
     They swathed their too much power.

     Time and Thought were my surveyors,
     They laid their courses well,
     They boiled the sea, and piled the layers
     Of granite, marl and shell.

     But he, the man-child glorious,—
     Where tarries he the while?
     The rainbow shines his harbinger,
     The sunset gleams his smile.

     My boreal lights leap upward,
     Forthright my planets roll,
     And still the man-child is not born,
     The summit of the whole.

     Must time and tide forever run?
     Will never my winds go sleep in the west?
     Will never my wheels which whirl the sun
     And satellites have rest?

     Too much of donning and doffing,
     Too slow the rainbow fades,
     I weary of my robe of snow,
     My leaves and my cascades;

     I tire of globes and races,
     Too long the game is played;
     What without him is summer's pomp,
     Or winter's frozen shade?

     I travail in pain for him,
     My creatures travail and wait;
     His couriers come by squadrons,
     He comes not to the gate.

     Twice I have moulded an image,
     And thrice outstretched my hand,
     Made one of day and one of night
     And one of the salt sea-sand.

     One in a Judaean manger,
     And one by Avon stream,
     One over against the mouths of Nile,
     And one in the Academe.

     I moulded kings and saviors,
     And bards o'er kings to rule;—
     But fell the starry influence short,
     The cup was never full.

     Yet whirl the glowing wheels once more,
     And mix the bowl again;
     Seethe, Fate! the ancient elements,
     Heat, cold, wet, dry, and peace, and pain.

     Let war and trade and creeds and song
     Blend, ripen race on race,
     The sunburnt world a man shall breed
     Of all the zones and countless days.

     No ray is dimmed, no atom worn,
     My oldest force is good as new,
     And the fresh rose on yonder thorn
     Gives back the bending heavens in dew.

     Thy summer voice, Musketaquit,
     Repeats the music of the rain;
     But sweeter rivers pulsing flit
     Through thee, as thou through Concord Plain.

     Thou in thy narrow banks art pent:
     The stream I love unbounded goes
     Through flood and sea and firmament;
     Through light, through life, it forward flows.

     I see the inundation sweet,
     I hear the spending of the stream
     Through years, through men, through Nature fleet,
     Through love and thought, through power and dream.

     Musketaquit, a goblin strong,
     Of shard and flint makes jewels gay;
     They lose their grief who hear his song,
     And where he winds is the day of day.

     So forth and brighter fares my stream,—
     Who drink it shall not thirst again;
     No darkness stains its equal gleam.
     And ages drop in it like rain.

     I do not count the hours I spend
     In wandering by the sea;
     The forest is my loyal friend,
     Like God it useth me.

     In plains that room for shadows make
     Of skirting hills to lie,
     Bound in by streams which give and take
     Their colors from the sky;

     Or on the mountain-crest sublime,
     Or down the oaken glade,
     O what have I to do with time?
     For this the day was made.

     Cities of mortals woe-begone
     Fantastic care derides,
     But in the serious landscape lone
     Stern benefit abides.

     Sheen will tarnish, honey cloy,
     And merry is only a mask of sad,
     But, sober on a fund of joy,
     The woods at heart are glad.

     There the great Planter plants
     Of fruitful worlds the grain,
     And with a million spells enchants
     The souls that walk in pain.

     Still on the seeds of all he made
     The rose of beauty burns;
     Through times that wear and forms that fade,
     Immortal youth returns.

     The black ducks mounting from the lake,
     The pigeon in the pines,
     The bittern's boom, a desert make
     Which no false art refines.

     Down in yon watery nook,
     Where bearded mists divide,
     The gray old gods whom Chaos knew,
     The sires of Nature, hide.

     Aloft, in secret veins of air,
     Blows the sweet breath of song,
     O, few to scale those uplands dare,
     Though they to all belong!

     See thou bring not to field or stone
     The fancies found in books;
     Leave authors' eyes, and fetch your own,
     To brave the landscape's looks.

     Oblivion here thy wisdom is,
     Thy thrift, the sleep of cares;
     For a proud idleness like this
     Crowns all thy mean affairs.

     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.'

     The yesterday doth never smile,
     The day goes drudging through the while,
     Yet, in the name of Godhead, I
     The morrow front, and can defy;
     Though I am weak, yet God, when prayed,
     Cannot withhold his conquering aid.
     Ah me! it was my childhood's thought,
     If He should make my web a blot
     On life's fair picture of delight,
     My heart's content would find it right.
     But O, these waves and leaves,—
     When happy stoic Nature grieves,
     No human speech so beautiful
     As their murmurs mine to lull.
     On this altar God hath built
     I lay my vanity and guilt;
     Nor me can Hope or Passion urge
     Hearing as now the lofty dirge
     Which blasts of Northern mountains hymn,
     Nature's funeral high and dim,—
     Sable pageantry of clouds,
     Mourning summer laid in shrouds.
     Many a day shall dawn and die,
     Many an angel wander by,
     And passing, light my sunken turf
     Moist perhaps by ocean surf,
     Forgotten amid splendid tombs,
     Yet wreathed and hid by summer blooms.
     On earth I dream;—I die to be:
     Time, shake not thy bald head at me.
     I challenge thee to hurry past
     Or for my turn to fly too fast.
     Think me not numbed or halt with age,
     Or cares that earth to earth engage,
     Caught with love's cord of twisted beams,
     Or mired by climate's gross extremes.
     I tire of shams, I rush to be:
     I pass with yonder comet free,—
     Pass with the comet into space
     Which mocks thy aeons to embrace;
     Aeons which tardily unfold
     Realm beyond realm,—extent untold;
     No early morn, no evening late,—
     Realms self-upheld, disdaining Fate,
     Whose shining sons, too great for fame,
     Never heard thy weary name;
     Nor lives the tragic bard to say
     How drear the part I held in one,
     How lame the other limped away.

     The April winds are magical
     And thrill our tuneful frames;
     The garden walks are passional
     To bachelors and dames.
     The hedge is gemmed with diamonds,
     The air with Cupids full,
     The cobweb clues of Rosamond
     Guide lovers to the pool.
     Each dimple in the water,
     Each leaf that shades the rock
     Can cozen, pique and flatter,
     Can parley and provoke.
     Goodfellow, Puck and goblins,
     Know more than any book.
     Down with your doleful problems,
     And court the sunny brook.
     The south-winds are quick-witted,
     The schools are sad and slow,
     The masters quite omitted
     The lore we care to know.

     Soft and softlier hold me, friends!
     Thanks if your genial care
     Unbind and give me to the air.
     Keep your lips or finger-tips
     For flute or spinet's dancing chips;
     I await a tenderer touch,
     I ask more or not so much:
     Give me to the atmosphere,—
     Where is the wind, my brother,—where?
     Lift the sash, lay me within,
     Lend me your ears, and I begin.
     For gentle harp to gentle hearts
     The secret of the world imparts;
     And not to-day and not to-morrow
     Can drain its wealth of hope and sorrow;
     But day by day, to loving ear
     Unlocks new sense and loftier cheer.
     I've come to live with you, sweet friends,
     This home my minstrel-journeyings ends.
     Many and subtle are my lays,
     The latest better than the first,
     For I can mend the happiest days
     And charm the anguish of the worst.

     The solid, solid universe
     Is pervious to Love;
     With bandaged eyes he never errs,
     Around, below, above.
     His blinding light
     He flingeth white
     On God's and Satan's brood,
     And reconciles
     By mystic wiles
     The evil and the good.

     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 reënter 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.

     LINES WRITTEN BY THE AUTHOR'S BROTHER,
     EDWARD BLISS EMERSON, WHILST SAILING OUT
     OF BOSTON HARBOR, BOUND FOR THE ISLAND OF
     PORTO RICO, IN 1832

     Farewell, ye lofty spires
     That cheered the holy light!
     Farewell, domestic fires
     That broke the gloom of night!
     Too soon those spires are lost,
     Too fast we leave the bay,
     Too soon by ocean tost
     From hearth and home away,
              Far away, far away.

     Farewell the busy town,
     The wealthy and the wise,
     Kind smile and honest frown
     From bright, familiar eyes.
     All these are fading now;
     Our brig hastes on her way,
     Her unremembering prow
     Is leaping o'er the sea,
             Far away, far away.

     Farewell, my mother fond,
     Too kind, too good to me;
     Nor pearl nor diamond
     Would pay my debt to thee.
     But even thy kiss denies
     Upon my cheek to stay;
     The winged vessel flies,
     And billows round her play,
             Far away, far away.

     Farewell, my brothers true,
     My betters, yet my peers;
     How desert without you
     My few and evil years!
     But though aye one in heart,
     Together sad or gay,
     Rude ocean doth us part;
     We separate to-day,
             Far away, far away.

     Farewell, thou fairest one,
     Unplighted yet to me,
     Uncertain of thine own
     I gave my heart to thee.
     That untold early love
     I leave untold to-day,
     My lips in whisper move
     Farewell to ...!
             Far away, far away.

     Farewell I breathe again
     To dim New England's shore,
     My heart shall beat not when
     I pant for thee no more.
     In yon green palmy isle,
     Beneath the tropic ray,
     I murmur never while
     For thee and thine I pray;
             Far away, far away.

     I mourn upon this battle-field,
     But not for those who perished here.
     Behold the river-bank
     Whither the angry farmers came,
     In sloven dress and broken rank,
     Nor thought of fame.
     Their deed of blood
     All mankind praise;
     Even the serene Reason says,
     It was well done.
     The wise and simple have one glance
     To greet yon stern head-stone,
     Which more of pride than pity gave
     To mark the Briton's friendless grave.
     Yet it is a stately tomb;
     The grand return
     Of eve and morn,
     The year's fresh bloom,
     The silver cloud,
     Might grace the dust that is most proud.

       Yet not of these I muse
     In this ancestral place,
     But of a kindred face
     That never joy or hope shall here diffuse.

       Ah, brother of the brief but blazing star!
     What hast thou to do with these
     Haunting this bank's historic trees?
     Thou born for noblest life,
     For action's field, for victor's car,
     Thou living champion of the right?
     To these their penalty belonged:
     I grudge not these their bed of death,
     But thine to thee, who never wronged
     The poorest that drew breath.

       All inborn power that could
     Consist with homage to the good
     Flamed from his martial eye;
     He who seemed a soldier born,
     He should have the helmet worn,
     All friends to fend, all foes defy,
     Fronting foes of God and man,
     Frowning down the evil-doer,
     Battling for the weak and poor.
     His from youth the leader's look
     Gave the law which others took,
     And never poor beseeching glance
     Shamed that sculptured countenance.

       There is no record left on earth,
     Save in tablets of the heart,
     Of the rich inherent worth,
     Of the grace that on him shone,
     Of eloquent lips, of joyful wit:
     He could not frame a word unfit,
     An act unworthy to be done;
     Honor prompted every glance,
     Honor came and sat beside him,
     In lowly cot or painful road,
     And evermore the cruel god
     Cried "Onward!" and the palm-crown showed,
     Born for success he seemed,
     With grace to win, with heart to hold,
     With shining gifts that took all eyes,
     With budding power in college-halls,
     As pledged in coming days to forge
     Weapons to guard the State, or scourge
     Tyrants despite their guards or walls.
     On his young promise Beauty smiled,
     Drew his free homage unbeguiled,
     And prosperous Age held out his hand,
     And richly his large future planned,
     And troops of friends enjoyed the tide,—
     All, all was given, and only health denied.

       I see him with superior smile
     Hunted by Sorrow's grisly train
     In lands remote, in toil and pain,
     With angel patience labor on,
     With the high port he wore erewhile,
     When, foremost of the youthful band,
     The prizes in all lists he won;
     Nor bate one jot of heart or hope,
     And, least of all, the loyal tie
     Which holds to home 'neath every sky,
     The joy and pride the pilgrim feels
     In hearts which round the hearth at home
     Keep pulse for pulse with those who roam.

       What generous beliefs console
     The brave whom Fate denies the goal!
     If others reach it, is content;
     To Heaven's high will his will is bent.
     Firm on his heart relied,
     What lot soe'er betide,
     Work of his hand
     He nor repents nor grieves,
     Pleads for itself the fact,
     As unrepenting Nature leaves
     Her every act.

       Fell the bolt on the branching oak;
     The rainbow of his hope was broke;
     No craven cry, no secret tear,—
     He told no pang, he knew no fear;
     Its peace sublime his aspect kept,
     His purpose woke, his features slept;
     And yet between the spasms of pain
     His genius beamed with joy again.

       O'er thy rich dust the endless smile
     Of Nature in thy Spanish isle
     Hints never loss or cruel break
     And sacrifice for love's dear sake,
     Nor mourn the unalterable Days
     That Genius goes and Folly stays.
     What matters how, or from what ground,
     The freed soul its Creator found?
     Alike thy memory embalms
     That orange-grove, that isle of palms,
     And these loved banks, whose oak-bough bold
     Root in the blood of heroes old.

     The lords of life, the lords of life,—
     I saw them pass
     In their own guise,
     Like and unlike,
     Portly and grim,—
     Use and Surprise,
     Surface and Dream,
     Succession swift and spectral Wrong,
     Temperament without a tongue,
     And the inventor of the game
     Omnipresent without name;—
     Some to see, some to be guessed,
     They marched from east to west:
     Little man, least of all,
     Among the legs of his guardians tall,
     Walked about with puzzled look.
     Him by the hand dear Nature took,
     Dearest Nature, strong and kind,
     Whispered, 'Darling, never mind!
     To-morrow they will wear another face,
     The founder thou; these are thy race!'

     The wings of Time are black and white,
     Pied with morning and with night.
     Mountain tall and ocean deep
     Trembling balance duly keep.
     In changing moon and tidal wave
     Glows the feud of Want and Have.
     Gauge of more and less through space,
     Electric star or pencil plays,
     The lonely Earth amid the balls
     That hurry through the eternal halls,
     A makeweight flying to the void,
     Supplemental asteroid,
     Or compensatory spark,
     Shoots across the neutral Dark.

     Man's the elm, and Wealth the vine;
     Stanch and strong the tendrils twine:
     Though the frail ringlets thee deceive,
     None from its stock that vine can reave.
     Fear not, then, thou child infirm,
     There's no god dare wrong a worm;
     Laurel crowns cleave to deserts,
     And power to him who power exerts.
     Hast not thy share? On winged feet,
     Lo it rushes thee to meet;
     And all that Nature made thy own,
     Floating in air or pent in stone,
     Will rive the hills and swim the sea,
     And, like thy shadow, follow thee.

     Gold and iron are good
     To buy iron and gold;
     All earth's fleece and food
     For their like are sold.
     Boded Merlin wise,
     Proved Napoleon great,
     Nor kind nor coinage buys
     Aught above its rate.
     Fear, Craft and Avarice
     Cannot rear a State.
     Out of dust to build
     What is more than dust,
     Walls Amphion piled
     Phoebus stablish must.
     When the Muses nine
     With the Virtues meet,
     Find to their design
     An Atlantic seat,
     By green orchard boughs
     Fended from the heat,
     here the statesman ploughs
     Furrow for the wheat,—
     When the Church is social worth,
     When the state-house is the hearth,
     Then the perfect State is come,
     The republican at home.

     Ruby wine is drunk by knaves,
     Sugar spends to fatten slaves,
     Rose and vine-leaf deck buffoons;
     Thunder-clouds are Jove's festoons,
     Drooping oft in wreaths of dread,
     Lightning-knotted round his head;
     The hero is not fed on sweets,
     Daily his own heart he eats;
     Chambers of the great are jails,
     And head-winds right for royal sails.

     The sun set, but set not his hope:
     Stars rose; his faith was earlier up:
     Fixed on the enormous galaxy,
     Deeper and older seemed his eye;
     And matched his sufferance sublime
     The taciturnity of time.
     He spoke, and words more soft than rain
     Brought the Age of Gold again:
     His action won such reverence sweet
     As hid all measure of the feat.

     Can rules or tutors educate
     The semigod whom we await?
     He must be musical,
     Tremulous, impressional,
     Alive to gentle influence
     Of landscape and of sky,
     And tender to the spirit-touch
     Of man's or maiden's eye:
     But, to his native centre fast,
     Shall into Future fuse the Past,
     And the world's flowing fates in his own mould recast.

     A ruddy drop of manly blood
     The surging sea outweighs,
     The world uncertain comes and goes;
     The lover rooted stays.
     I fancied he was fled,—
     And, after many a year,
     Glowed unexhausted kindliness,
     Like daily sunrise there.
     My careful heart was free again,
     O friend, my bosom said,
     Through thee alone the sky is arched,
     Through thee the rose is red;
     All things through thee take nobler form,
     And look beyond the earth,
     The mill-round of our fate appears
     A sun-path in thy worth.
     Me too thy nobleness has taught
     To master my despair;
     The fountains of my hidden life
     Are through thy friendship fair.

     The living Heaven thy prayers respect,
     House at once and architect,
     Quarrying man's rejected hours,
     Builds therewith eternal towers;
     Sole and self-commanded works,
     Fears not undermining days,
     Grows by decays,
     And, by the famous might that lurks
     In reaction and recoil,
     Makes flame to freeze and ice to boil;
     Forging, through swart arms of Offence,
     The silver seat of Innocence.

     Was never form and never face
     So sweet to SEYD as only grace
     Which did not slumber like a stone,
     But hovered gleaming and was gone.
     Beauty chased he everywhere,
     In flame, in storm, in clouds of air.
     He smote the lake to feed his eye
     With the beryl beam of the broken wave;
     He flung in pebbles well to hear
     The moment's music which they gave.
     Oft pealed for him a lofty tone
     From nodding pole and belting zone.
     He heard a voice none else could hear
     From centred and from errant sphere.
     The quaking earth did quake in rhyme,
     Seas ebbed and flowed in epic chime.
     In dens of passion, and pits of woe,
     He saw strong Eros struggling through,
     To sun the dark and solve the curse,
     And beam to the bounds of the universe.
     While thus to love he gave his days
     In loyal worship, scorning praise,
     How spread their lures for him in vain
     Thieving Ambition and paltering Gain!
     He thought it happier to be dead,
     To die for Beauty, than live for bread.

     Grace, Beauty and Caprice
     Build this golden portal;
     Graceful women, chosen men,
     Dazzle every mortal.
     Their sweet and lofty countenance
     His enchanted food;
     He need not go to them, their forms
     Beset his solitude.
     He looketh seldom in their face,
     His eyes explore the ground,—
     The green grass is a looking-glass
     Whereon their traits are found.
     Little and less he says to them,
     So dances his heart in his breast;
     Their tranquil mien bereaveth him
     Of wit, of words, of rest.
     Too weak to win, too fond to shun
     The tyrants of his doom,
     The much deceived Endymion
     Slips behind a tomb.

     Give to barrows, trays and pans
     Grace and glimmer of romance;
     Bring the moonlight into noon
     Hid in gleaming piles of stone;
     On the city's paved street
     Plant gardens lined with lilacs sweet;
     Let spouting fountains cool the air,
     Singing in the sun-baked square;
     Let statue, picture, park and hall,
     Ballad, flag and festival,
     The past restore, the day adorn,
     And make to-morrow a new morn.
     So shall the drudge in dusty frock
     Spy behind the city clock
     Retinues of airy kings,
     Skirts of angels, starry wings,
     His fathers shining in bright fables,
     His children fed at heavenly tables.
     'T is the privilege of Art
     Thus to play its cheerful part,
     Man on earth to acclimate
     And bend the exile to his fate,
     And, moulded of one element
     With the days and firmament,
     Teach him on these as stairs to climb,
     And live on even terms with Time;
     Whilst upper life the slender rill
     Of human sense doth overfill.

     Space is ample, east and west,
     But two cannot go abreast,
     Cannot travel in it two:
     Yonder masterful cuckoo
     Crowds every egg out of the nest,
     Quick or dead, except its own;
     A spell is laid on sod and stone,
     Night and Day were tampered with,
     Every quality and pith
     Surcharged and sultry with a power
     That works its will on age and hour.

     This is he, who, felled by foes,
     Sprung harmless up, refreshed by blows:
     He to captivity was sold,
     But him no prison-bars would hold:
     Though they sealed him in a rock,
     Mountain chains he can unlock:
     Thrown to lions for their meat,
     The crouching lion kissed his feet;
     Bound to the stake, no flames appalled,
     But arched o'er him an honoring vault.
     This is he men miscall Fate,
     Threading dark ways, arriving late,
     But ever coming in time to crown
     The truth, and hurl wrong-doers down.
     He is the oldest, and best known,
     More near than aught thou call'st thy own,
     Yet, greeted in another's eyes,
     Disconcerts with glad surprise.
     This is Jove, who, deaf to prayers,
     Floods with blessings unawares.
     Draw, if thou canst, the mystic line
     Severing rightly his from thine,
     Which is human, which divine.

     Theme no poet gladly sung,
     Fair to old and foul to young;
     Scorn not thou the love of parts,
     And the articles of arts.
     Grandeur of the perfect sphere
     Thanks the atoms that cohere.

     I

     A subtle chain of countless rings
     The next unto the farthest brings;
     The eye reads omens where it goes,
     And speaks all languages the rose;
     And, striving to be man, the worm
     Mounts through all the spires of form.

     II

     The rounded world is fair to see,
     Nine times folded in mystery:
     Though baffled seers cannot impart
     The secret of its laboring heart,
     Throb thine with Nature's throbbing breast,
     And all is clear from east to west.
     Spirit that lurks each form within
     Beckons to spirit of its kin;
     Self-kindled every atom glows
     And hints the future which it owes.

     I

     There is no great and no small
     To the Soul that maketh all:
     And where it cometh, all things are;
     And it cometh everywhere.

     II

     I am owner of the sphere,
     Of the seven stars and the solar year,
     Of Caesar's hand, and Plato's brain,
     Of Lord Christ's heart, and Shakspeare's strain.

     Nature centres into balls,
     And her proud ephemerals,
     Fast to surface and outside,
     Scan the profile of the sphere;
     Knew they what that signified,
     A new genesis were here.

     Go, speed the stars of Thought
     On to their shining goals;—
     The sower scatters broad his seed;
     The wheat thou strew'st be souls.