May-Day Part 1

May-Day.

by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Daughter of Heaven and Earth, coy Spring, With sudden pa.s.sion languishing, Maketh all things softly smile, Painteth pictures mile on mile, Holds a cup with cowslip-wreaths, Whence a smokeless incense breathes.

Girls are peeling the sweet willow, Poplar white, and Gilead-tree, And troops of boys Shouting with whoop and hilloa, And hip, hip three times three.

The air is full of whistlings bland; What was that I heard Out of the hazy land?

Harp of the wind, or song of bird, Or clapping of shepherd's hands, Or vagrant booming of the air, Voice of a meteor lost in day?

Such tidings of the starry sphere Can this elastic air convey.

Or haply 't was the cannonade Of the pent and darkened lake, Cooled by the pendent mountain's shade, Whose deeps, till beams of noonday break, Afflicted moan, and latest hold Even unto May the iceberg cold.

Was it a squirrel's pettish bark, Or clarionet of jay? or hark, Where yon wedged line the Nestor leads, Steering north with raucous cry Through tracts and provinces of sky, Every night alighting down In new landscapes of romance, Where darkling feed the clamorous clans By lonely lakes to men unknown.

Come the tumult whence it will, Voice of sport, or rush of wings, It is a sound, it is a token That the marble sleep is broken, And a change has pa.s.sed on things.

Beneath the calm, within the light, A hid unruly appet.i.te Of swifter life, a surer hope, Strains every sense to larger scope, Impatient to antic.i.p.ate The halting steps of aged Fate.

Slow grows the palm, too slow the pearl: When Nature falters, fain would zeal Grasp the felloes of her wheel, And grasping give the orbs another whirl.

Turn swiftlier round, O tardy ball!

And sun this frozen side, Bring hither back the robin's call, Bring back the tulip's pride.

Why chidest thou the tardy Spring?

The hardy bunting does not chide; The blackbirds make the maples ring With social cheer and jubilee; The redwing flutes his _o-ka-lee_, The robins know the melting snow; The sparrow meek, prophetic-eyed, Her nest beside the snow-drift weaves, Secure the osier yet will hide Her callow brood in mantling leaves; And thou, by science all undone, Why only must thy reason fail To see the southing of the sun?

As we thaw frozen flesh with snow, So Spring will not, foolish fond, Mix polar night with tropic glow, Nor cloy us with unshaded sun, Nor wanton skip with bacchic dance, But she has the temperance Of the G.o.ds, whereof she is one,-- Masks her treasury of heat Under east-winds crossed with sleet.

Plants and birds and humble creatures Well accept her rule austere; t.i.tan-born, to hardy natures Cold is genial and dear.

As Southern wrath to Northern right Is but straw to anthracite; As in the day of sacrifice, When heroes piled the pyre, The dismal Ma.s.sachusetts ice Burned more than others' fire, So Spring guards with surface cold The garnered heat of ages old: Hers to sow the seed of bread, That man and all the kinds be fed; And, when the sunlight fills the hours, Dissolves the crust, displays the flowers.

The world rolls round,--mistrust it not,-- Befalls again what once befell; All things return, both sphere and mote, And I shall hear my bluebird's note, And dream the dream of Auburn dell.

When late I walked, in earlier days, All was stiff and stark; Knee-deep snows choked all the ways, In the sky no spark; Firm-braced I sought my ancient woods, Struggling through the drifted roads; The whited desert knew me not, Snow-ridges masked each darling spot; The summer dells, by genius haunted, One arctic moon had disenchanted.

All the sweet secrets therein hid By Fancy, ghastly spells undid.

Eldest mason, Frost, had piled, With wicked ingenuity, Swift cathedrals in the wild; The piny hosts were sheeted ghosts In the star-lit minster aisled.

I found no joy: the icy wind Might rule the forest to his mind.

Who would freeze in frozen brakes?

Back to books and sheltered home, And wood-fire flickering on the walls, To hear, when, 'mid our talk and games, Without the baffled north-wind calls.

But soft! a sultry morning breaks; The cowslips make the brown brook gay; A happier hour, a longer day.

Now the sun leads in the May, Now desire of action wakes, And the wish to roam.

The caged linnet in the Spring Hearkens for the choral glee, When his fellows on the wing Migrate from the Southern Sea; When trellised grapes their flowers unmask, And the new-born tendrils twine, The old wine darkling in the cask Feels the bloom on the living vine, And bursts the hoops at hint of Spring: And so, perchance, in Adam's race, Of Eden's bower some dream-like trace Survived the Flight, and swam the Flood, And wakes the wish in youngest blood To tread the forfeit Paradise, And feed once more the exile's eyes; And ever when the happy child In May beholds the blooming wild, And hears in heaven the bluebird sing, "Onward," he cries, "your baskets bring,-- In the next field is air more mild, And o'er yon hazy crest is Eden's balmier Spring."

Not for a regiment's parade, Nor evil laws or rulers made, Blue Walden rolls its cannonade, But for a lofty sign Which the Zodiac threw, That the bondage-days are told, And waters free as winds shall flow.

Lo! how all the tribes combine To rout the flying foe.

See, every patriot oak-leaf throws His elfin length upon the snows, Not idle, since the leaf all day Draws to the spot the solar ray, Ere sunset quarrying inches down, And half-way to the mosses brown; While the gra.s.s beneath the rime Has hints of the propitious time, And upward pries and perforates Through the cold slab a thousand gates, Till green lances peering through Bend happy in the welkin blue.

April cold with dropping rain Willows and lilacs brings again, The whistle of returning birds, And trumpet-lowing of the herds.

The scarlet maple-keys betray What potent blood hath modest May; What fiery force the earth renews, The wealth of forms, the flush of hues; Joy shed in rosy waves abroad Flows from the heart of Love, the Lord.

Hither rolls the storm of heat; I feel its finer billows beat Like a sea which me infolds; Heat with viewless fingers moulds, Swells, and mellows, and matures, Paints, and flavours, and allures, Bird and brier inly warms, Still enriches and transforms, Gives the reed and lily length, Adds to oak and oxen strength, Boils the world in tepid lakes, Burns the world, yet burnt remakes; Enveloping heat, enchanted robe, Wraps the daisy and the globe, Transforming what it doth infold, Life out of death, new out of old, Painting fawns' and leopards' fells, Seethes the gulf-encrimsoning sh.e.l.ls, Fires garden with a joyful blaze Of tulips in the morning's rays.

The dead log touched bursts into leaf, The wheat-blade whispers of the sheaf.

What G.o.d is this imperial Heat, Earth's prime secret, sculpture's seat?

Doth it bear hidden in its heart Water-line patterns of all art, All figures, organs, hues, and graces?

Is it Daedalus? is it Love?

Or walks in mask almighty Jove, And drops from Power's redundant horn All seeds of beauty to be born?

Where shall we keep the holiday, And duly greet the entering May?

Too strait and low our cottage doors, And all unmeet our carpet floors; Nor s.p.a.cious court, nor monarch's hall, Suffice to hold the festival.

Up and away! where haughty woods Front the liberated floods: We will climb the broad-backed hills, Hear the uproar of their joy; We will mark the leaps and gleams Of the new-delivered streams, And the murmuring rivers of sap Mount in the pipes of the trees, Giddy with day, to the topmost spire, Which for a spike of tender green Bartered its powdery cap; And the colours of joy in the bird, And the love in its carol heard, Frog and lizard in holiday coats, And turtle brave in his golden spots; We will hear the tiny roar Of the insects evermore, While cheerful cries of crag and plain Reply to the thunder of river and main.

As poured the flood of the ancient sea Spilling over mountain chains, Bending forests as bends the sedge, Faster flowing o'er the plains,-- A world-wide wave with a foaming edge That rims the running silver sheet,-- So pours the deluge of the heat Broad northward o'er the land, Painting artless paradises, Drugging herbs with Syrian spices, Fanning secret fires which glow In columbine and clover-blow, Climbing the northern zones, Where a thousand pallid towns Lie like c.o.c.kles by the main, Or tented armies on a plain.

The million-handed sculptor moulds Quaintest bud and blossom folds, The million-handed painter pours Opal hues and purple dye; Azaleas flush the island floors, And the tints of heaven reply.

Wreaths for the May! for happy Spring To-day shall all her dowry bring, The love of kind, the joy, the grace, Hymen of element and race, Knowing well to celebrate With song and hue and star and state, With tender light and youthful cheer, The spousals of the new-born year.

Lo Love's inundation poured Over s.p.a.ce and race abroad!

Spring is strong and virtuous, Broad-sowing, cheerful, plenteous, Quickening underneath the mould Grains beyond the price of gold.

So deep and large her bounties are, That one broad, long midsummer day Shall to the planet overpay The ravage of a year of war.

Drug the cup, thou butler sweet, And send the nectar round; The feet that slid so long on sleet Are glad to feel the ground.

Fill and saturate each kind With good according to its mind, Fill each kind and saturate With good agreeing with its fate, Willow and violet, maiden and man.

The bitter-sweet, the haunting air, Creepeth, bloweth everywhere; It preys on all, all prey on it, Blooms in beauty, thinks in wit, Stings the strong with enterprise, Makes travellers long for Indian skies, And where it comes this courier fleet Fans in all hearts expectance sweet, As if to-morrow should redeem The vanished rose of evening's dream.

By houses lies a fresher green, On men and maids a ruddier mien, As if time brought a new relay Of shining virgins every May, And Summer came to ripen maids To a beauty that not fades.

The ground-pines wash their rusty green, The maple-tops their crimson tint, On the soft path each track is seen, The girl's foot leaves its neater print.

The pebble loosened from the frost Asks of the urchin to be tost.

In flint and marble beats a heart, The kind Earth takes her children's part, The green lane is the school-boy's friend, Low leaves his quarrel apprehend, The fresh ground loves his top and ball, The air rings jocund to his call, The br.i.m.m.i.n.g brook invites a leap, He dives the hollow, climbs the steep.

The youth reads omens where he goes, And speaks all languages the rose.

The wood-fly mocks with tiny noise The far halloo of human voice; The perfumed berry on the spray Smacks of faint memories far away.

A subtle chain of countless rings The next unto the farthest brings, And, striving to be man, the worm Mounts through all the spires of form.

I saw the bud-crowned Spring go forth, Stepping daily onward north To greet staid ancient cavaliers Filing single in stately train.

And who, and who are the travellers?

They were Night and Day, and Day and Night, Pilgrims wight with step forthright.

I saw the Days deformed and low, Short and bent by cold and snow; The merry Spring threw wreaths on them, Flower-wreaths gay with bud and bell; Many a flower and many a gem, They were refreshed by the smell, They shook the snow from hats and shoon, They put their April raiment on; And those eternal forms, Unhurt by a thousand storms, Shot up to the height of the sky again, And danced as merrily as young men.

I saw them mask their awful glance Sidewise meek in gossamer lids; And to speak my thought if none forbids.

It was as if the eternal G.o.ds, Tired of their starry periods, Hid their majesty in cloth Woven of tulips and painted moth.

On carpets green the maskers march Below May's well-appointed arch, Each star, each G.o.d, each grace amain, Every joy and virtue speed, Marching duly in her train, And fainting Nature at her need Is made whole again.

'T was the vintage-day of field and wood, When magic wine for bards is brewed; Every tree and stem and c.h.i.n.k Gushed with syrup to the brink.

The air stole into the streets of towns, And betrayed the fund of joy To the high-school and medalled boy: On from hall to chamber ran, From youth to maid, from boy to man, To babes, and to old eyes as well.

'Once more,' the old man cried, 'ye clouds, Airy turrets purple-piled, Which once my infancy beguiled, Beguile me with the wonted spell.

I know ye skilful to convoy The total freight of hope and joy Into rude and homely nooks, Shed mocking l.u.s.tres on shelf of books, On farmer's byre, on meadow-pipes, Or on a pool of dancing chips.

I care not if the pomps you show Be what they soothfast appear, Or if yon realms in sunset glow Be bubbles of the atmosphere.

And if it be to you allowed To fool me with a shining cloud, So only new griefs are consoled By new delights, as old by old, Frankly I will be your guest, Count your change and cheer the best.

The world hath overmuch of pain,-- If Nature give me joy again, Of such deceit I'll not complain.'

Ah! well I mind the calendar, Faithful through a thousand years, Of the painted race of flowers, Exact to days, exact to hours, Counted on the s.p.a.cious dial Yon broidered zodiac girds.

I know the pretty almanac Of the punctual coming-back, On their due days, of the birds.

I marked them yestermorn, A flock of finches darting Beneath the crystal arch, Piping, as they flew, a march,-- Belike the one they used in parting Last year from yon oak or larch; Dusky sparrows in a crowd, Diving, darting northward free, Suddenly betook them all, Every one to his hole in the wall, Or to his niche in the apple-tree.

I greet with joy the choral trains Fresh from palms and Cuba's canes.