Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson Part 13

THE DAY'S RATION

When I was born, From all the seas of strength Fate filled a chalice, Saying, 'This be thy portion, child; this chalice, Less than a lily's, thou shalt daily draw From my great arteries,--nor less, nor more.'

All substances the cunning chemist Time Melts down into that liquor of my life,-- Friends, foes, joys, fortunes, beauty and disgust.

And whether I am angry or content, Indebted or insulted, loved or hurt, All he distils into sidereal wine And brims my little cup; heedless, alas!

Of all he sheds how little it will hold, How much runs over on the desert sands.

If a new Muse draw me with splendid ray, And I uplift myself into its heaven, The needs of the first sight absorb my blood, And all the following hours of the day Drag a ridiculous age.

To-day, when friends approach, and every hour Brings book, or starbright scroll of genius, The little cup will hold not a bead more, And all the costly liquor runs to waste; Nor gives the jealous lord one diamond drop So to be husbanded for poorer days.

Why need I volumes, if one word suffice?

Why need I galleries, when a pupil's draught After the master's sketch fills and o'erfills My apprehension? Why seek Italy, Who cannot circ.u.mnavigate the sea Of thoughts and things at home, but still adjourn The nearest matters for a thousand days?

BLIGHT

Give me truths; For I am weary of the surfaces, And die of inanition. If I knew Only the herbs and simples of the wood, Rue, cinquefoil, gill, vervain and agrimony, Blue-vetch and trillium, hawkweed, sa.s.safras, Milkweeds and murky brakes, quaint pipes and sundew, And rare and virtuous roots, which in these woods Draw untold juices from the common earth, Untold, unknown, and I could surely spell Their fragrance, and their chemistry apply By sweet affinities to human flesh, Driving the foe and stablishing the friend,-- O, that were much, and I could be a part Of the round day, related to the sun And planted world, and full executor Of their imperfect functions.

But these young scholars, who invade our hills, Bold as the engineer who fells the wood, And travelling often in the cut he makes, Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not, And all their botany is Latin names.

The old men studied magic in the flowers, And human fortunes in astronomy, And an omnipotence in chemistry, Preferring things to names, for these were men, Were unitarians of the united world, And, wheresoever their clear eye-beams fell, They caught the footsteps of the SAME. Our eyes Are armed, but we are strangers to the stars, And strangers to the mystic beast and bird, And strangers to the plant and to the mine.

The injured elements say, 'Not in us;'

And night and day, ocean and continent, Fire, plant and mineral say, 'Not in us;'

And haughtily return us stare for stare.

For we invade them impiously for gain; We devastate them unreligiously, And coldly ask their pottage, not their love.

Therefore they shove us from them, yield to us Only what to our griping toil is due; But the sweet affluence of love and song, The rich results of the divine consents Of man and earth, of world beloved and lover, The nectar and ambrosia, are withheld; And in the midst of spoils and slaves, we thieves And pirates of the universe, shut out Daily to a more thin and outward rind, Turn pale and starve. Therefore, to our sick eyes, The stunted trees look sick, the summer short, Clouds shade the sun, which will not tan our hay, And nothing thrives to reach its natural term; And life, shorn of its venerable length, Even at its greatest s.p.a.ce is a defeat, And dies in anger that it was a dupe; And, in its highest noon and wantonness, Is early frugal, like a beggar's child; Even in the hot pursuit of the best aims And prizes of ambition, checks its hand, Like Alpine cataracts frozen as they leaped, Chilled with a miserly comparison Of the toy's purchase with the length of life.

MUSKETAQUID

Because I was content with these poor fields, Low, open meads, slender and sluggish streams, And found a home in haunts which others scorned, The partial wood-G.o.ds overpaid my love, And granted me the freedom of their state, And in their secret senate have prevailed With the dear, dangerous lords that rule our life, Made moon and planets parties to their bond, And through my rock-like, solitary wont Shot million rays of thought and tenderness.

For me, in showers, in sweeping showers, the Spring Visits the valley;--break away the clouds,-- I bathe in the morn's soft and silvered air, And loiter willing by yon loitering stream.

Sparrows far off, and nearer, April's bird, Blue-coated,--flying before from tree to tree, Courageous sing a delicate overture To lead the tardy concert of the year.

Onward and nearer rides the sun of May; And wide around, the marriage of the plants Is sweetly solemnized. Then flows amain The surge of summer's beauty; dell and crag, Hollow and lake, hillside and pine arcade, Are touched with genius. Yonder ragged cliff Has thousand faces in a thousand hours.

Beneath low hills, in the broad interval Through which at will our Indian rivulet Winds mindful still of sannup and of squaw, Whose pipe and arrow oft the plough unburies, Here in pine houses built of new-fallen trees, Supplanters of the tribe, the farmers dwell.

Traveller, to thee, perchance, a tedious road, Or, it may be, a picture; to these men, The landscape is an armory of powers, Which, one by one, they know to draw and use.

They harness beast, bird, insect, to their work; They prove the virtues of each bed of rock, And, like the chemist 'mid his loaded jars, Draw from each stratum its adapted use To drug their crops or weapon their arts withal.

They turn the frost upon their chemic heap, They set the wind to winnow pulse and grain, They thank the spring-flood for its fertile slime, And, on cheap summit-levels of the snow, Slide with the sledge to inaccessible woods O'er meadows bottomless. So, year by year, They fight the elements with elements (That one would say, meadow and forest walked, Trans.m.u.ted in these men to rule their like), And by the order in the field disclose The order regnant in the yeoman's brain.

What these strong masters wrote at large in miles, I followed in small copy in my acre; For there's no rood has not a star above it; The cordial quality of pear or plum Ascends as gladly in a single tree As in broad orchards resonant with bees; And every atom poises for itself, And for the whole. The gentle deities Showed me the lore of colors and of sounds, The innumerable tenements of beauty.

The miracle of generative force, Far-reaching concords of astronomy Felt in the plants and in the punctual birds; Better, the linked purpose of the whole, And, chiefest prize, found I true liberty In the glad home plain-dealing Nature gave.

The polite found me impolite; the great Would mortify me, but in vain; for still I am a willow of the wilderness, Loving the wind that bent me. All my hurts My garden spade can heal. A woodland walk, A quest of river-grapes, a mocking thrush, A wild-rose, or rock-loving columbine, Salve my worst wounds.

For thus the wood-G.o.ds murmured in my ear: 'Dost love our manners? Canst thou silent lie?

Canst thou, thy pride forgot, like Nature pa.s.s Into the winter night's extinguished mood?

Canst thou shine now, then darkle, And being latent, feel thyself no less?

As, when the all-worshipped moon attracts the eye, The river, hill, stems, foliage are obscure, Yet envies none, none are unenviable.'

DIRGE

CONCORD, 1838

I reached the middle of the mount Up which the incarnate soul must climb, And paused for them, and looked around, With me who walked through s.p.a.ce and time.

Five rosy boys with morning light Had leaped from one fair mother's arms, Fronted the sun with hope as bright, And greeted G.o.d with childhood's psalms.

Knows he who tills this lonely field To reap its scanty corn, What mystic fruit his acres yield At midnight and at morn?

In the long sunny afternoon The plain was full of ghosts; I wandered up, I wandered down, Beset by pensive hosts.

The winding Concord gleamed below, Pouring as wide a flood As when my brothers, long ago, Came with me to the wood.

But they are gone,--the holy ones Who trod with me this lovely vale; The strong, star-bright companions Are silent, low and pale.

My good, my n.o.ble, in their prime, Who made this world the feast it was Who learned with me the lore of time, Who loved this dwelling-place!

They took this valley for their toy, They played with it in every mood; A cell for prayer, a hall for joy,-- They treated Nature as they would.

They colored the horizon round; Stars flamed and faded as they bade, All echoes hearkened for their sound,-- They made the woodlands glad or mad.

I touch this flower of silken leaf, Which once our childhood knew; Its soft leaves wound me with a grief Whose balsam never grew.

Hearken to yon pine-warbler Singing aloft in the tree!

Hearest thou, O traveller, What he singeth to me?

Not unless G.o.d made sharp thine ear With sorrow such as mine, Out of that delicate lay could'st thou Its heavy tale divine.

'Go, lonely man,' it saith; 'They loved thee from their birth; Their hands were pure, and pure their faith,-- There are no such hearts on earth.

'Ye drew one mother's milk, One chamber held ye all; A very tender history Did in your childhood fall.

'You cannot unlock your heart, The key is gone with them; The silent organ loudest chants The master's requiem.'

THRENODY

The South-wind brings Life, sunshine and desire, And on every mount and meadow Breathes aromatic fire; But over the dead he has no power, The lost, the lost, he cannot restore; And, looking over the hills, I mourn The darling who shall not return.

I see my empty house, I see my trees repair their boughs; And he, the wondrous child, Whose silver warble wild Outvalued every pulsing sound Within the air's cerulean round,-- The hyacinthine boy, for whom Morn well might break and April bloom, The gracious boy, who did adorn The world whereinto he was born, And by his countenance repay The favor of the loving Day,-- Has disappeared from the Day's eye; Far and wide she cannot find him; My hopes pursue, they cannot bind him.

Returned this day, the South-wind searches, And finds young pines and budding birches; But finds not the budding man; Nature, who lost, cannot remake him; Fate let him fall, Fate can't retake him; Nature, Fate, men, him seek in vain.

And whither now, my truant wise and sweet, O, whither tend thy feet?

I had the right, few days ago, Thy steps to watch, thy place to know: How have I forfeited the right?

Hast thou forgot me in a new delight?

I hearken for thy household cheer, O eloquent child!

Whose voice, an equal messenger, Conveyed thy meaning mild.