Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson Part 14

What though the pains and joys Whereof it spoke were toys Fitting his age and ken, Yet fairest dames and bearded men, Who heard the sweet request, So gentle, wise and grave, Bended with joy to his behest And let the world's affairs go by, A while to share his cordial game, Or mend his wicker wagon-frame, Still plotting how their hungry fear That winsome voice again might hear; For his lips could well p.r.o.nounce Words that were persuasions.

Gentlest guardians marked serene His early hope, his liberal mien; Took counsel from his guiding eyes To make this wisdom earthly wise.

Ah, vainly do these eyes recall The school-march, each day's festival, When every morn my bosom glowed To watch the convoy on the road; The babe in willow wagon closed, With rolling eyes and face composed; With children forward and behind, Like Cupids studiously inclined; And he the chieftain paced beside, The centre of the troop allied, With sunny face of sweet repose, To guard the babe from fancied foes.

The little captain innocent Took the eye with him as he went; Each village senior paused to scan And speak the lovely caravan.

From the window I look out To mark thy beautiful parade, Stately marching in cap and coat To some tune by fairies played;-- A music heard by thee alone To works as n.o.ble led thee on.

Now Love and Pride, alas! in vain, Up and down their glances strain.

The painted sled stands where it stood; The kennel by the corded wood; His gathered sticks to stanch the wall Of the snow-tower, when snow should fall; The ominous hole he dug in the sand, And childhood's castles built or planned; His daily haunts I well discern,-- The poultry-yard, the shed, the barn,-- And every inch of garden ground Paced by the blessed feet around, From the roadside to the brook Whereinto he loved to look.

Step the meek fowls where erst they ranged; The wintry garden lies unchanged; The brook into the stream runs on; But the deep-eyed boy is gone.

On that shaded day, Dark with more clouds than tempests are, When thou didst yield thy innocent breath In birdlike heavings unto death, Night came, and Nature had not thee; I said, 'We are mates in misery.'

The morrow dawned with needless glow; Each s...o...b..rd chirped, each fowl must crow; Each tramper started; but the feet Of the most beautiful and sweet Of human youth had left the hill And garden,--they were bound and still.

There's not a sparrow or a wren, There's not a blade of autumn grain, Which the four seasons do not tend And tides of life and increase lend; And every chick of every bird, And weed and rock-moss is preferred.

O ostrich-like forgetfulness!

O loss of larger in the less!

Was there no star that could be sent, No watcher in the firmament, No angel from the countless host That loiters round the crystal coast, Could stoop to heal that only child, Nature's sweet marvel undefiled, And keep the blossom of the earth, Which all her harvests were not worth?

Not mine,--I never called thee mine, But Nature's heir,--if I repine, And seeing rashly torn and moved Not what I made, but what I loved, Grow early old with grief that thou Must to the wastes of Nature go,-- 'T is because a general hope Was quenched, and all must doubt and grope.

For flattering planets seemed to say This child should ills of ages stay, By wondrous tongue, and guided pen, Bring the flown Muses back to men.

Perchance not he but Nature ailed, The world and not the infant failed.

It was not ripe yet to sustain A genius of so fine a strain, Who gazed upon the sun and moon As if he came unto his own, And, pregnant with his grander thought, Brought the old order into doubt.

His beauty once their beauty tried; They could not feed him, and he died, And wandered backward as in scorn, To wait an aeon to be born.

Ill day which made this beauty waste, Plight broken, this high face defaced!

Some went and came about the dead; And some in books of solace read; Some to their friends the tidings say; Some went to write, some went to pray; One tarried here, there hurried one; But their heart abode with none.

Covetous death bereaved us all, To aggrandize one funeral.

The eager fate which carried thee Took the largest part of me: For this losing is true dying; This is lordly man's down-lying, This his slow but sure reclining, Star by star his world resigning.

O child of paradise, Boy who made dear his father's home, In whose deep eyes Men read the welfare of the times to come, I am too much bereft.

The world dishonored thou hast left.

O truth's and nature's costly lie!

O trusted broken prophecy!

O richest fortune sourly crossed!

Born for the future, to the future lost!

The deep Heart answered, 'Weepest thou?

Worthier cause for pa.s.sion wild If I had not taken the child.

And deemest thou as those who pore, With aged eyes, short way before,-- Think'st Beauty vanished from the coast Of matter, and thy darling lost?

Taught he not thee--the man of eld, Whose eyes within his eyes beheld Heaven's numerous hierarchy span The mystic gulf from G.o.d to man?

To be alone wilt thou begin When worlds of lovers hem thee in?

To-morrow, when the masks shall fall That dizen Nature's carnival, The pure shall see by their own will, Which overflowing Love shall fill, 'T is not within the force of fate The fate-conjoined to separate.

But thou, my votary, weepest thou?

I gave thee sight--where is it now?

I taught thy heart beyond the reach Of ritual, bible, or of speech; Wrote in thy mind's transparent table, As far as the incommunicable; Taught thee each private sign to raise Lit by the supersolar blaze.

Past utterance, and past belief, And past the blasphemy of grief, The mysteries of Nature's heart; And though no Muse can these impart, Throb thine with Nature's throbbing breast, And all is clear from east to west.

'I came to thee as to a friend; Dearest, to thee I did not send Tutors, but a joyful eye, Innocence that matched the sky, Lovely locks, a form of wonder, Laughter rich as woodland thunder, That thou might'st entertain apart The richest flowering of all art: And, as the great all-loving Day Through smallest chambers takes its way, That thou might'st break thy daily bread With prophet, savior and head; That thou might'st cherish for thine own The riches of sweet Mary's Son, Boy-Rabbi, Israel's paragon.

And thoughtest thou such guest Would in thy hall take up his rest?

Would rushing life forget her laws, Fate's glowing revolution pause?

High omens ask diviner guess; Not to be conned to tediousness And know my higher gifts unbind The zone that girds the incarnate mind.

When the scanty sh.o.r.es are full With Thought's perilous, whirling pool; When frail Nature can no more, Then the Spirit strikes the hour: My servant Death, with solving rite, Pours finite into infinite.

Wilt thou freeze love's tidal flow, Whose streams through Nature circling go?

Nail the wild star to its track On the half-climbed zodiac?

Light is light which radiates, Blood is blood which circulates, Life is life which generates, And many-seeming life is one,-- Wilt thou transfix and make it none?

Its onward force too starkly pent In figure, bone and lineament?

Wilt thou, uncalled, interrogate, Talker! the unreplying Fate?

Nor see the genius of the whole Ascendant in the private soul, Beckon it when to go and come, Self-announced its hour of doom?

Fair the soul's recess and shrine, Magic-built to last a season; Masterpiece of love benign, Fairer that expansive reason Whose omen 'tis, and sign.

Wilt thou not ope thy heart to know What rainbows teach, and sunsets show?

Verdict which acc.u.mulates From lengthening scroll of human fates, Voice of earth to earth returned, Prayers of saints that inly burned,-- Saying, _What is excellent,_ _As G.o.d lives, is permanent;_ _Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain;_ _Heart's love will meet thee again._ Revere the Maker; fetch thine eye Up to his style, and manners of the sky.

Not of adamant and gold Built he heaven stark and cold; No, but a nest of bending reeds, Flowering gra.s.s and scented weeds; Or like a traveller's fleeing tent, Or bow above the tempest bent; Built of tears and sacred flames, And virtue reaching to its aims; Built of furtherance and pursuing, Not of spent deeds, but of doing.

Silent rushes the swift Lord Through ruined systems still restored, Broadsowing, bleak and void to bless, Plants with worlds the wilderness; Waters with tears of ancient sorrow Apples of Eden ripe to-morrow.

House and tenant go to ground, Lost in G.o.d, in G.o.dhead found.'

CONCORD HYMN

SUNG AT THE COMPLETION OF THE BATTLE MONUMENT, JULY 4, 1837

By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept; Alike the conqueror silent sleeps; And Time the ruined bridge has swept Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream, We set to-day a votive stone; That memory may their deed redeem, When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare To die, and leave their children free, Bid Time and Nature gently spare The shaft we raise to them and thee.

II

MAY-DAY AND OTHER PIECES

MAY-DAY

Daughter of Heaven and Earth, coy Spring, With sudden pa.s.sion languishing, Teaching Barren moors to smile, Painting pictures mile on mile, Holds a cup with cowslip-wreaths, Whence a smokeless incense breathes.

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 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 'twas 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 into 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.