Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson Part 12

I thank the joyful juice For all I know;-- Winds of remembering Of the ancient being blow, And seeming-solid walls of use Open and flow.

Pour, Bacchus! the remembering wine; Retrieve the loss of me and mine!

Vine for vine be antidote, And the grape requite the lote!

Haste to cure the old despair,-- Reason in Nature's lotus drenched, The memory of ages quenched; Give them again to shine; Let wine repair what this undid; And where the infection slid, A dazzling memory revive; Refresh the faded tints, Recut the aged prints, And write my old adventures with the pen Which on the first day drew, Upon the tablets blue, The dancing Pleiads and eternal men.

MEROPS

What care I, so they stand the same,-- Things of the heavenly mind,-- How long the power to give them name Tarries yet behind?

Thus far to-day your favors reach, O fair, appeasing presences!

Ye taught my lips a single speech, And a thousand silences.

s.p.a.ce grants beyond his fated road No inch to the G.o.d of day; And copious language still bestowed One word, no more, to say.

THE HOUSE

There is no architect Can build as the Muse can; She is skilful to select Materials for her plan;

Slow and warily to choose Rafters of immortal pine, Or cedar incorruptible, Worthy her design,

She threads dark Alpine forests Or valleys by the sea, In many lands, with painful steps, Ere she can find a tree.

She ransacks mines and ledges And quarries every rock, To hew the famous adamant For each eternal block--

She lays her beams in music, In music every one, To the cadence of the whirling world Which dances round the sun--

That so they shall not be displaced By lapses or by wars, But for the love of happy souls Outlive the newest stars.

SAADI

Trees in groves, Kine in droves, In ocean sport the scaly herds, Wedge-like cleave the air the birds, To northern lakes fly wind-borne ducks, Browse the mountain sheep in flocks, Men consort in camp and town, But the poet dwells alone.

G.o.d, who gave to him the lyre, Of all mortals the desire, For all breathing men's behoof, Straitly charged him, 'Sit aloof;'

Annexed a warning, poets say, To the bright premium,-- Ever, when twain together play, Shall the harp be dumb.

Many may come, But one shall sing; Two touch the string, The harp is dumb.

Though there come a million, Wise Saadi dwells alone.

Yet Saadi loved the race of men,-- No churl, immured in cave or den; In bower and hall He wants them all, Nor can dispense With Persia for his audience; They must give ear, Grow red with joy and white with fear; But he has no companion; Come ten, or come a million, Good Saadi dwells alone.

Be thou ware where Saadi dwells; Wisdom of the G.o.ds is he,-- Entertain it reverently.

Gladly round that golden lamp Sylvan deities encamp, And simple maids and n.o.ble youth Are welcome to the man of truth.

Most welcome they who need him most, They feed the spring which they exhaust; For greater need Draws better deed: But, critic, spare thy vanity, Nor show thy pompous parts, To vex with odious subtlety The cheerer of men's hearts.

Sad-eyed Fakirs swiftly say Endless dirges to decay, Never in the blaze of light Lose the shudder of midnight; Pale at overflowing noon Hear wolves barking at the moon; In the bower of dalliance sweet Hear the far Avenger's feet: And shake before those awful Powers, Who in their pride forgive not ours.

Thus the sad-eyed Fakirs preach: 'Bard, when thee would Allah teach, And lift thee to his holy mount, He sends thee from his bitter fount Wormwood,--saying, "Go thy ways; Drink not the Malaga of praise, But do the deed thy fellows hate, And compromise thy peaceful state; Smite the white b.r.e.a.s.t.s which thee fed.

Stuff sharp thorns beneath the head Of them thou shouldst have comforted; For out of woe and out of crime Draws the heart a lore sublime."'

And yet it seemeth not to me That the high G.o.ds love tragedy; For Saadi sat in the sun, And thanks was his contrition; For haircloth and for b.l.o.o.d.y whips, Had active hands and smiling lips; And yet his runes he rightly read, And to his folk his message sped.

Sunshine in his heart transferred Lighted each transparent word, And well could honoring Persia learn What Saadi wished to say; For Saadi's nightly stars did burn Brighter than Jami's day.

Whispered the Muse in Saadi's cot: 'O gentle Saadi, listen not, Tempted by thy praise of wit, Or by thirst and appet.i.te For the talents not thine own, To sons of contradiction.

Never, son of eastern morning, Follow falsehood, follow scorning.

Denounce who will, who will deny, And pile the hills to scale the sky; Let theist, atheist, pantheist, Define and wrangle how they list, Fierce conserver, fierce destroyer,-- But thou, joy-giver and enjoyer, Unknowing war, unknowing crime, Gentle Saadi, mind thy rhyme; Heed not what the brawlers say, Heed thou only Saadi's lay.

'Let the great world bustle on With war and trade, with camp and town; A thousand men shall dig and eat; At forge and furnace thousands sweat; And thousands sail the purple sea, And give or take the stroke of war, Or crowd the market and bazaar; Oft shall war end, and peace return, And cities rise where cities burn, Ere one man my hill shall climb, Who can turn the golden rhyme.

Let them manage how they may, Heed thou only Saadi's lay.

Seek the living among the dead,-- Man in man is imprisoned; Barefooted Dervish is not poor, If fate unlock his bosom's door, So that what his eye hath seen His tongue can paint as bright, as keen; And what his tender heart hath felt With equal fire thy heart shalt melt.

For, whom the Muses smile upon, And touch with soft persuasion, His words like a storm-wind can bring Terror and beauty on their wing; In his every syllable Lurketh Nature veritable; And though he speak in midnight dark,-- In heaven no star, on earth no spark,-- Yet before the listener's eye Swims the world in ecstasy, The forest waves, the morning breaks, The pastures sleep, ripple the lakes, Leaves twinkle, flowers like persons be, And life pulsates in rock or tree.

Saadi, so far thy words shall reach: Suns rise and set in Saadi's speech!'

And thus to Saadi said the Muse: 'Eat thou the bread which men refuse; Flee from the goods which from thee flee; Seek nothing,--Fortune seeketh thee.

Nor mount, nor dive; all good things keep The midway of the eternal deep.

Wish not to fill the isles with eyes To fetch thee birds of paradise: On thine orchard's edge belong All the brags of plume and song; Wise Ali's sunbright sayings pa.s.s For proverbs in the market-place: Through mountains bored by regal art, Toil whistles as he drives his cart.

Nor scour the seas, nor sift mankind, A poet or a friend to find: Behold, he watches at the door!

Behold his shadow on the floor!

Open innumerable doors The heaven where unveiled Allah pours The flood of truth, the flood of good, The Seraph's and the Cherub's food.

Those doors are men: the Pariah hind Admits thee to the perfect Mind.

Seek not beyond thy cottage wall Redeemers that can yield thee all: While thou sittest at thy door On the desert's yellow floor, Listening to the gray-haired crones, Foolish gossips, ancient drones, Saadi, see! they rise in stature To the height of mighty Nature, And the secret stands revealed Fraudulent Time in vain concealed,-- That blessed G.o.ds in servile masks Plied for thee thy household tasks.'

HOLIDAYS

From fall to spring, the russet acorn, Fruit beloved of maid and boy, Lent itself beneath the forest, To be the children's toy.

Pluck it now! In vain,--thou canst not; Its root has pierced yon shady mound; Toy no longer--it has duties; It is anch.o.r.ed in the ground.

Year by year the rose-lipped maiden, Playfellow of young and old, Was frolic sunshine, dear to all men, More dear to one than mines of gold.

Whither went the lovely hoyden?

Disappeared in blessed wife; Servant to a wooden cradle, Living in a baby's life.

Still thou playest;--short vacation Fate grants each to stand aside; Now must thou be man and artist,-- 'T is the turning of the tide.

XENOPHANES

By fate, not option, frugal Nature gave One scent to hyson and to wall-flower, One sound to pine-groves and to waterfalls, One aspect to the desert and the lake.

It was her stern necessity: all things Are of one pattern made; bird, beast and flower, Song, picture, form, s.p.a.ce, thought and character Deceive us, seeming to be many things, And are but one. Beheld far off, they part As G.o.d and devil; bring them to the mind, They dull its edge with their monotony.

To know one element, explore another, And in the second reappears the first.

The specious panorama of a year But multiplies the image of a day,-- A belt of mirrors round a taper's flame; And universal Nature, through her vast And crowded whole, an infinite paroquet, Repeats one note.