Poems Household Edition — Reading Notes

merson had left traditional religion, the city, the Old World, behind, and now went to Nature as his teacher, his inspiration. His first book, "Nature," which he was meditating while in Europe, was finished here, and published in 1836. His practice during all his life in Concord was to go alone to the woods almost daily, sometimes to wait there for hours, and, when thus attuned, to receive the message to which he was to give voice. Though it might be colored by him in transmission, he held that the light was universal.

"Ever the words of the Gods resound, But the porches of man's ear Seldom in this low life's round Are unsealed that he may hear."

But he resorted, also, to the books of those who had handed down the oracles truly, and was quick to find the message destined for him. Men, too, he studied eagerly, the humblest and the highest, regretting always that the brand of the scholar on him often silenced the men of shop and office where he came. He was everywhere a learner, expecting light from the youngest and least educated visitor. The thoughts combined with the flower of his reading were gradually grouped into lectures, and his main occupation through life was reading these to who would hear, at first in courses in Boston, but later all over the country, for the Lyceum sprang up in New England in these years in every town, and spread westward to the new settlements even beyond the Mississippi. His winters were spent in these rough, but to him interesting journeys, for he loved to watch the growth of the Republic in which he had faith, and his summers were spent in study and writing. These lectures were later severely pruned and revised, and the best of them gathered into seven volumes of essays under different names between 1841 and 1876. The courses in Boston, which at first were given in the Masonic Temple, were always well attended by earnest and thoughtful people. The young, whether in years or in spirit, were always and to the end his audience of the spoken or written word. The freedom of the Lyceum platform pleased Emerson. He found that people would hear on Wednesday with approval and unsuspectingly doctrines from which on Sunday they felt officially obliged to dissent.

Mr. Lowell, in his essays, has spoken of these early lectures and what they were worth to him and others suffering from the generous discontent of youth with things as they were. Emerson used to say, "My strength and my doom is to be solitary;" but to a retired scholar a wholesome offset to this was the travelling and lecturing in cities and in raw frontier towns, bringing him into touch with the people, and this he knew and valued.

In 1837 Emerson gave the Phi Beta Kappa oration in Cambridge, The American Scholar, which increased his growing reputation, but the following year his Address to the Senior Class at the Divinity School brought out, even from the friendly Unitarians, severe strictures and warnings against its dangerous doctrines. Of this heresy Emerson said: "I deny personality to God because it is too little, not too much." He really strove to elevate the idea of God. Yet those who were pained or shocked by his teachings respected Emerson. His lectures were still in demand; he was often asked to speak by literary societies at orthodox colleges. He preached regularly at East Lexington until 1838, but thereafter withdrew from the ministerial office. At this time the progressive and spiritually minded young people used to meet for discussion and help in Boston, among them George Ripley, Cyrus Bartol, James Freeman Clarke, Alcott, Dr. Hedge, Margaret Fuller, and Elizabeth Peabody. Perhaps from this gathering of friends, which Emerson attended, came what is called the Transcendental Movement, two results of which were the Brook Farm Community and the Dial magazine, in which last Emerson took great interest, and was for the time an editor. Many of these friends were frequent visitors in Concord. Alcott moved thither after the breaking up of his school. Hawthorne also came to dwell there. Henry Thoreau, a Concord youth, greatly interested Emerson; indeed, became for a year or two a valued inmate of his home, and helped and instructed him in the labors of the garden and little farm, which gradually grew to ten acres, the chief interest of which for the owner was his trees, which he loved and tended. Emerson helped introduce his countrymen to the teachings of Carlyle, and edited his works here, where they found more readers than at home.

In 1847 Emerson was invited to read lectures in England, and remained abroad a year, visiting France also in her troublous times. English Traits was a result. Just before this journey he had collected and published his poems. A later volume, called May Day, followed in 1867. He had written verses from childhood, and to the purified expression of poetry he, through life, eagerly aspired. He said, "I like my poems best because it is not I who write them." In 1866 the degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred on him by Harvard University, and he was chosen an Overseer. In 1867 he again gave the Phi Beta Kappa oration, and in 1870 and 1871 gave courses in Philosophy in the University Lectures at Cambridge.

Emerson was not merely a man of letters. He recognized and did the private and public duties of the hour. He exercised a wide hospitality to souls as well as bodies. Eager youths came to him for rules, and went away with light. Reformers, wise and unwise, came to him, and were kindly received. They were often disappointed that they could not harness him to their partial and transient scheme. He said, My reforms include theirs: I must go my way; help people by my strength, not by my weakness. But if a storm threatened, he felt bound to appear and show his colors. Against the crying evils of his time he worked bravely in his own way. He wrote to President Van Buren against the wrong done to the Cherokees, dared speak against the idolized Webster, when he deserted the cause of Freedom, constantly spoke of the iniquity of slavery, aided with speech and money the Free State cause in Kansas, was at Phillips's side at the antislavery meeting in 1861 broken up by the Boston mob, urged emancipation during the war.

He enjoyed his Concord home and neighbors, served on the school committee for years, did much for the Lyceum, and spoke on the town's great occasions. He went to all town-meetings, oftener to listen and admire than to speak, and always took pleasure and pride in the people. In return he was respected and loved by them.

Emerson's house was destroyed by fire in 1872, and the incident exposure and fatigue did him harm. His many friends insisted on rebuilding his house and sending him abroad to get well. He went up the Nile, and revisited England, finding old and new friends, and, on his return, was welcomed and escorted home by the people of Concord. After this time he was unable to write. His old age was quiet and happy among his family and friends. He died in April, 1882.

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.

Good-bye to Flattery's fawning face; To Grandeur with his wise grimace; To upstart Wealth's averted eye; To supple Office, low and high; To crowded halls, to court and street; To frozen hearts and hasting feet; To those who go, and those who come; Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home.

I am going to my own hearth-stone, Bosomed in yon green hills alone,-- secret nook in a pleasant land, Whose groves the frolic fairies planned; Where arches green, the livelong day, Echo the blackbird's roundelay, And vulgar feet have never trod A spot that is sacred to thought and God.

O, 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?

Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown Of thee from the hill-top looking down; The heifer that lows in the upland farm, Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm; The sexton, tolling his bell at noon, Deems not that great Napoleon Stops his horse, and lists with delight, Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height; Nor knowest thou what argument Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent. All are needed by each one; Nothing is fair or good alone. I thought the sparrow's note from heaven, Singing at dawn on the alder bough; I brought him home, in his nest, at even; He sings the song, but it cheers not now, For I did not bring home the river and sky;-- He sang to my ear,--they sang to my eye. The delicate shells lay on the shore; The bubbles of the latest wave Fresh pearls to their enamel gave, And the bellowing of the savage sea Greeted their safe escape to me. I wiped away the weeds and foam, I fetched my sea-born treasures home; But the poor, unsightly, noisome things Had left their beauty on the shore With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar. The lover watched his graceful maid, As 'mid the virgin train she strayed, Nor knew her beauty's best attire Was woven still by the snow-white choir. At last she came to his hermitage, Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage;-- The gay enchantment was undone, A gentle wife, but fairy none. Then I said, 'I covet truth; Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat; I leave it behind with the games of youth:'-- As I spoke, beneath my feet The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath, Running over the club-moss burrs; I inhaled the violet's breath; Around me stood the oaks and firs; Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground; Over me soared the eternal sky. Full of light and of deity; Again I saw, again I heard, The rolling river, the morning bird;-- Beauty through my senses stole; I yielded myself to the perfect whole.

I like a church; I like a cowl; I love a prophet of the soul; And on my heart monastic aisles Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles Yet not for all his faith can see Would I that cowlèd churchman be.

Why should the vest on him allure, Which I could not on me endure?

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.

Know'st thou what wove yon woodbird's nest Of leaves, and feathers from her breast? Or how the fish outbuilt her shell, Painting with morn each annual cell? Or how the sacred pine-tree adds To her old leaves new myriads? Such and so grew these holy piles, Whilst love and terror laid the tiles. Earth proudly wears the Parthenon, As the best gem upon her zone, And Morning opes with haste her lids To gaze upon the Pyramids; O'er England's abbeys bends the sky, As on its friends, with kindred eye; For out of Thought's interior sphere These wonders rose to upper air; And Nature gladly gave them place, Adopted them into her race, And granted them an equal date With Andes and with Ararat.

These temples grew as grows the grass; Art might obey, but not surpass. The passive Master lent his hand To the vast soul that o'er him planned; And the same power that reared the shrine Bestrode the tribes that knelt within. Ever the fiery Pentecost Girds with one flame the countless host, Trances the heart through chanting choirs, And through the priest the mind inspires. The word unto the prophet spoken Was writ on tables yet unbroken; The word by seers or sibyls told, In groves of oak, or fanes of gold, Still floats upon the morning wind, Still whispers to the willing mind. One accent of the Holy Ghost The heedless world hath never lost. I know what say the fathers wise,-- The Book itself before me lies, Old _Chrysostom_, best Augustine, And he who blent both in his line, The younger _Golden Lips_ or mines, Taylor, the Shakspeare of divines. His words are music in my ear, I see his cowlèd portrait dear; And yet, for all his faith could see, I would not the good bishop be.

Thee, dear friend, a brother soothes, Not with flatteries, but truths, Which tarnish not, but purify To light which dims the morning's eye. I have come from the spring-woods, From the fragrant solitudes;-- Listen what the poplar-tree And murmuring waters counselled me.

If with love thy heart has burned; If thy love is unreturned; Hide thy grief within thy breast, Though it tear thee unexpressed; For when love has once departed From the eyes of the false-hearted, And one by one has torn off quite The bandages of purple light; Though thou wert the loveliest Form the soul had ever dressed, Thou shalt seem, in each reply, A vixen to his altered eye; Thy softest pleadings seem too bold, Thy praying lute will seem to scold; Though thou kept the straightest road, Yet thou errest far and broad.

But thou shalt do as do the gods In their cloudless periods; For of this lore be thou sure,-- Though thou forget, the gods, secure, Forget never their command, But make the statute of this land. As they lead, so follow all, Ever have done, ever shall. Warning to the blind and deaf, 'T is written on the iron leaf, _Who drinks of Cupid's nectar cup_ _Loveth downward, and not up;_ He who loves, of gods or men, Shall not by the same be loved again; His sweetheart's idolatry Falls, in turn, a new degree. When a god is once beguiled By beauty of a mortal child And by her radiant youth delighted, He is not fooled, but warily knoweth His love shall never be requited. And thus the wise Immortal doeth,-- 'T is his study and delight To bless that creature day and night; From all evils to defend her; In her lap to pour all splendor; To ransack earth for riches rare, And fetch her stars to deck her hair: He mixes music with her thoughts, And saddens her with heavenly doubts: All grace, all good his great heart knows, Profuse in love, the king bestows, Saying, 'Hearken! Earth, Sea, Air! This monument of my despair Build I to the All-Good, All-Fair. Not for a private good, But I, from my beatitude, Albeit scorned as none was scorned, Adorn her as was none adorned. I make this maiden an ensample To Nature, through her kingdoms ample, Whereby to model newer races, Statelier forms and fairer faces; To carry man to new degrees Of power and of comeliness. These presents be the hostages Which I pawn for my release. See to thyself, O Universe! Thou art better, and not worse.'-- And the god, having given all, Is freed forever from his thrall.

Askest, 'How long thou shalt stay?' Devastator of the day! Know, each substance and relation, Thorough nature's operation, Hath its unit, bound and metre; And every new compound Is some product and repeater,-- Product of the earlier found. But the unit of the visit, The encounter of the wise,-- Say, what other metre is it Than the meeting of the eyes? Nature poureth into nature Through the channels of that feature, Riding on the ray of sight, Fleeter far than whirlwinds go, Or for service, or delight, Hearts to hearts their meaning show, Sum their long experience, And import intelligence. Single look has drained the breast; Single moment years confessed. The duration of a glance Is the term of convenance, And, though thy rede be church or state, Frugal multiples of that. Speeding Saturn cannot halt; Linger,--thou shalt rue the fault: If Love his moment overstay, Hatred's swift repulsions play.

It fell in the ancient periods Which the brooding soul surveys, Or ever the wild Time coined itself Into calendar months and days.

This was the lapse of Uriel, Which in Paradise befell. Once, among the Pleiads walking, Seyd overheard the young gods talking; And the treason, too long pent, To his ears was evident. The young deities discussed Laws of form, and metre just, Orb, quintessence, and sunbeams, What subsisteth, and what seems. One, with low tones that decide, And doubt and reverend use defied, With a look that solved the sphere, And stirred the devils everywhere, Gave his sentiment divine Against the being of a line. 'Line in nature is not found; Unit and universe are round; In vain produced, all rays return; Evil will bless, and ice will burn.' As Uriel spoke with piercing eye, A shudder ran around the sky; The stern old war-gods shook their heads, The seraphs frowned from myrtle-beds; Seemed to the holy festival The rash word boded ill to all; The balance-beam of Fate was bent; The bounds of good and ill were rent; Strong Hades could not keep his own, But all slid to confusion.

A sad self-knowledge, withering, fell On the beauty of Uriel; In heaven once eminent, the god Withdrew, that hour, into his cloud; Whether doomed to long gyration In the sea of generation, Or by knowledge grown too bright To hit the nerve of feebler sight. Straightway, a forgetting wind Stole over the celestial kind, And their lips the secret kept, If in ashes the fire-seed slept. But now and then, truth-speaking things Shamed the angels' veiling wings; And, shrilling from the solar course, Or from fruit of chemic force, Procession of a soul in matter, Or the speeding change of water, Or out of the good of evil born, Came Uriel's voice of cherub scorn, And a blush tinged the upper sky, And the gods shook, they knew not why.

Thanks to the morning light, Thanks to the foaming sea, To the uplands of New Hampshire, To the green-haired forest free; Thanks to each man of courage, To the maids of holy mind, To the boy with his games undaunted Who never looks behind.

Cities of proud hotels, Houses of rich and great, Vice nestles in your chambers, Beneath your roofs of slate. It cannot conquer folly,-- Time-and-space-conquering steam,-- And the light-outspeeding telegraph Bears nothing on its beam.

The politics are base; The letters do not cheer; And 'tis far in the deeps of history, The voice that speaketh clear. Trade and the streets ensnare us, Our bodies are weak and worn; We plot and corrupt each other, And we despoil the unborn.

Yet there in the parlor sits Some figure of noble guise,-- Our angel, in a stranger's form, Or woman's pleading eyes; Or only a flashing sunbeam In at the window-pane; Or Music pours on mortals Its beautiful disdain.

The inevitable morning Finds them who in cellars be; And be sure the all-loving Nature Will smile in a factory. Yon ridge of purple landscape, Yon sky between the walls, Hold all the hidden wonders In scanty intervals.

Alas! the Sprite that haunts us Deceives our rash desire; It whispers of the glorious gods, And leaves us in the mire. We cannot learn the cipher That's writ upon our cell; Stars taunt us by a mystery Which we could never spell.

If but one hero knew it, The world would blush in flame; The sage, till he hit the secret, Would hang his head for shame. Our brothers have not read it, Not one has found the key; And henceforth we are comforted,-- We are but such as they.

Still, still the secret presses; The nearing clouds draw down; The crimson morning flames into The fopperies of the town. Within, without the idle earth, Stars weave eternal rings; The sun himself shines heartily, And shares the joy he brings.