Yet why should he who shrieking goes
With millions, from a world of woes,
Reunion seek with it or those?
Alone with God, where no wind blows,
And Death, his shadow-doomed, he goes:
That God is there the shadow shows.
O shoreless Deep, where no wind blows!
And thou, O Land which no one knows!
That God is all, His shadow shows.
My sheep I neglected, I lost my sheep-hook,
And all the gay haunts of my youth I forsook;
No more for Amynta fresh garlands I wove;
For ambition, I said, would soon cure my love.
Oh, what had my youth with ambition to do?
Why left I Amynta? Why broke I my vow ?
Oh, give me my sheep, and my sheep-hook restore, I'll wander from love and Amynta no more.
Alas! 'tis too late at my fate to repine;
Poor shepherd, Amynta no more can be thine:
Thy tears are all fruitless, thy wishes are vain,
The moments neglected return not again.
355. THE MONUMENT OF CONCORD FIGHT
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.
357. GOOD-BYE, PROUD WORLD!
GOOD-BYE, proud world! I'm going home;
Thou art not my friend and I'm not thine.
Long through thy weary crowds I roam:
A river-ark on the ocean brine,
Long I've been tossed like the driven foam
But now, proud world! I'm going home.
Oh, when I am safe in my sylvan home,
I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome;
And when I am stretched beneath the pines,
Where the evening star so holy shines,
I laugh at the lore and the pride of man,
At the sophist schools, and the learned clan;
For what are they all, in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet?
R. W. EMERSON.
358. FROM 'THE WORLD-SOUL'
HE serveth the servant,
The brave he loves amain ;
He kills the cripple and the sick,
And straight begins again;
For gods delight in gods,
And thrust the weak aside;
To him who scorns their charities,
Their arms fly open wide.
They reckon ill who leave me out; When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin
sings.
The strong gods pine for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred
But thou, meek lover of the good! Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.
R. W. EMERSON.
361. FROM THE PROBLEM'
NOT from a vain or shallow thought
His awful Jove young Phidias brought;
Never from lips of cunning fell
The thrilling Delphic oracle;
Out from the heart of nature rolled
The burdens of the Bible old;
The litanies of nations came,
Like the volcano's tongue of flame,
Up from the burning core below,―
The canticles of love and woe;
The hand that rounded Peter's dome,
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,
Wrought in a sad sincerity;
Himself from God he could not free;
He builded better than he knew ;-
The conscious stone to beauty grew.
O FAIR and stately maid, whose eyes
Were kindled in the upper skies
At the same torch that lighted mine;
For so I must interpret still
Thy sweet dominion o'er my will,
A sympathy divine.
Ah! let me blameless gaze upon
Features that seem at heart my own;
Nor fear those watchful sentinels,
Who charm the more their glance forbids,
Chaste-glowing, underneath their lids,
With fire that draws while it repels.
364. YE HAPPY SWAINS, WHOSE HEARTS ARE FREE
YE happy swains, whose hearts are free
From Love's imperial chain,
Take warning, and be taught by me,
To avoid the enchanting pain.
Fatal the wolves to trembling flocks-
Fierce winds to blossoms prove-
To careless seamen, hidden rocks-
To human quiet, love.
Fly the fair sex, if bliss you prize;
The snake's beneath the flower:
Who ever gazed on beauteous eyes,
That tasted quiet more?
How faithless is the lovers' joy!
How constant is their care!
The kind with falsehood do destroy,
The cruel with despair.
I HAVE known cities with the strong-armed Rhine
Clasping their mouldered quays in lordly sweep;
And lingered where the Maine's low waters shine
Through Tyrian Frankfort; and been fain to weep
'Mid the green cliffs where pale Mosella laves
That Roman sepulchre, imperial Treves.
Ghent boasts her street, and Bruges her moonlight square;
And holy Mechlin, Rome of Flanders, stands,
Like a queen-mother, on her spacious lands;
And Antwerp shoots her glowing spire in air.
Yet have I seen no place, by inland brook,
Hill-top, or plain, or trim arcaded bowers,
That carries age so nobly in its look,
As Oxford with the sun upon her towers.
367. ENIGMA ON THE LETTER H
'Twas whispered in Heaven, 'twas muttered in Hell,
And echo caught softly the sound as it fell;
In the confines of earth 'twas permitted to rest,
And the depth of the ocean its presence confessed;
'Twas seen in the lightning, 'twas heard in the thunder,
'Twill be found in the spheres when they're riven asunder;
'Twas given to man with his earliest breath,
It assists at his birth and attends him in death,
Presides o'er his happiness, honour, and health,
'Tis the prop of his house and the end of his wealth;
It begins every hope, every wish it must bound,
With the husbandman toils, and with monarchs is crowned;
In the heaps of the miser 'tis hoarded with care,
But is sure to be lost in the prodigal heir;
Without it the soldier and sailor may roam,
But woe to the wretch who expels it from home;
In the whispers of conscience it there will be found,
Nor e'er in the whirlwind of passion be drowned;
It softens the heart, and though deaf to the ear,
It will make it acutely and instantly hear;
But in shades let it rest, like an elegant flower,
Oh! breathe on it softly, it dies in an hour.
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