I saw the civil sun drying earth's tears,

Her tears of joy that only faster flowed.[13]

Fain would I stretch me by the highway-side

To thaw and trickle with the melting snow;

That mingled, soul and body, with the tide,

I too may through the pores of nature flow.

The rabbit leaps,

The mouse out-creeps,

The flag out-peeps

Beside the brook;

The ferret weeps,

The marmot sleeps,

The owlet keeps

In his snug nook.

The apples thaw,

The ravens caw,

The squirrels gnaw

The frozen fruit.

To their retreat

I track the feet

Of mice that eat

The apple's root.

The snow-dust falls,

The otter crawls,

The partridge calls,

Far in the wood.

The traveler dreams,

The tree-ice gleams,

The blue jay screams

In angry mood.

The willows droop,

The alders stoop,

The pheasants group

Beneath the snow.

The catkins green

Cast o'er the scene

A summer's sheen,

A genial glow.

If I am poor,

It is that I am proud;

If God has made me naked and a boor,

He did not think it fit his work to shroud.

The poor man comes direct from heaven to earth,

As stars drop down the sky, and tropic beams;

The rich receives in our gross air his birth,

As from low suns are slanted golden gleams.

Yon sun is naked, bare of satellite,

Unless our earth and moon that office hold;

Though his perpetual day feareth no night,

And his perennial summer dreads no cold.

Mankind may delve, but cannot my wealth spend;

If I no partial wealth appropriate,

No armèd ships unto the Indies send,

None robs me of my Orient estate.

"Have you not seen,

In ancient times,

Pilgrims pass by

Toward other climes,

With shining faces,

Youthful and strong,

Mounting this hill

With speech and with song?"

"Ah, my good sir,

I know not those ways;

Little my knowledge,

Tho' many my days.

When I have slumbered,

I have heard sounds

As of travelers passing

These my grounds.

"'T was a sweet music

Wafted them by,

I could not tell

If afar off or nigh.

Unless I dreamed it,

This was of yore:

I never told it

To mortal before,

Never remembered

But in my dreams

What to me waking

A miracle seems."

In this roadstead I have ridden,

In this covert I have hidden;

Friendly thoughts were cliffs to me,

And I hid beneath their lee.

This true people took the stranger,

And warm-hearted housed the ranger;

They received their roving guest,

And have fed him with the best;

Whatsoe'er the land afforded

To the stranger's wish accorded;

Shook the olive, stripped the vine,

And expressed the strengthening wine.

And by night they did spread o'er him

What by day they spread before him;—

That good-will which was repast

Was his covering at last.

The stranger moored him to their pier

Without anxiety or fear;

By day he walked the sloping land,

By night the gentle heavens he scanned.

When first his bark stood inland

To the coast of that far Finland,

Sweet-watered brooks came tumbling to the shore

The weary mariner to restore.

And still he stayed from day to day

If he their kindness might repay;

But more and more

The sullen waves came rolling toward the shore.

And still the more the stranger waited,

The less his argosy was freighted,

And still the more he stayed,

The less his debt was paid.

So he unfurled his shrouded mast

To receive the fragrant blast;

And that sane refreshing gale

Which had wooed him to remain

Again and again,

It was that filled his sail

And drove him to the main.

All day the low-hung clouds

Dropt tears into the sea;

And the wind amid the shrouds

Sighed plaintively.

My life more civil is and free

Than any civil polity.

Ye princes, keep your realms

And circumscribèd power,

Not wide as are my dreams,

Nor rich as is this hour.

What can ye give which I have not?

What can ye take which I have got?

Can ye defend the dangerless?

Can ye inherit nakedness?

To all true wants Time's ear is deaf,

Penurious states lend no relief

Out of their pelf:

But a free soul—thank God—

Can help itself.

Be sure your fate

Doth keep apart its state,

Not linked with any band,

Even the noblest of the land;

In tented fields with cloth of gold

No place doth hold,

But is more chivalrous than they are,

And sigheth for a nobler war;

A finer strain its trumpet sings,

A brighter gleam its armor flings.

The life that I aspire to live

No man proposeth me;

No trade upon the street[16]

Wears its emblazonry.

When the world grows old by the chimney-side

Then forth to the youngling nooks I glide,

Where over the water and over the land

The bells are booming on either hand.

Now up they go ding, then down again dong,

And awhile they ring to the same old song,

For the metal goes round at a single bound,

A-cutting the fields with its measured sound,

While the tired tongue falls with a lengthened boom

As solemn and loud as the crack of doom.

Then changed is their measure to tone upon tone,

And seldom it is that one sound comes alone,

For they ring out their peals in a mingled throng,

And the breezes waft the loud ding-dong along.

When the echo hath reached me in this lone vale,

I am straightway a hero in coat of mail,

I tug at my belt and I march on my post,

And feel myself more than a match for a host.

Great God! I ask thee for no meaner pelf

Than that I may not disappoint myself;

That in my action I may soar as high

As I can now discern with this clear eye;

And next in value, which thy kindness lends,

That I may greatly disappoint my friends,

Howe'er they think or hope it that may be,

They may not dream how thou 'st distinguished me;

That my weak hand may equal my firm faith,

And my life practice more than my tongue saith;

That my low conduct may not show,

Nor my relenting lines,

That I thy purpose did not know,

Or overrated thy designs.