RALPH WALDO EMERSON

 

*

Uriel

 

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.

 

*

Destiny

 

That you are fair or wise is vain,

Or strong, or rich, or generous;

You must add the untaught strain

That sheds beauty on the rose.

There’s a melody born of melody,

Which melts the world into a sea.

Toil could never compass it;

Art its height could never hit;

It came never out of wit;

But a music music-born

Well may Jove and Juno scorn.

Thy beauty, if it lack the fire

Which drives me mad with sweet desire,

What boots it? What the soldier’s mail,

Unless he conquer and prevail?

What all the goods thy pride which lift,

If thou pine for another’s gift?

Alas! that one is born in blight,

Victim of perpetual slight:

When thou lookest on his face,

Thy heart saith, “Brother, go thy ways!

None shall ask thee what thou doest,

Or care a rush for what thou knowest,

Or listen when thou repliest,

Or remember where thou liest,

Or how thy supper is sodden”;

And another is born

To make the sun forgotten.

Surely he carries a talisman

Under his tongue;

Broad his shoulders are and strong;

And his eye is scornful,

Threatening and young.

I hold it of little matter

Whether your jewel be of pure water,

A rose diamond or a white,

But whether it dazzle me with light.

I care not how you are dressed,

In coarsest weeds or in the best;

Nor whether your name is base or brave:

Nor for the fashion of your behavior;

But whether you charm me,

Bid my bread feed and my fire warm me,

And dress up Nature in your favor.

One thing is forever good;

That one thing is Success,—

Dear to the Eumenides,

And to all the heavenly brood.

Who bides at home, nor looks abroad,

Carries the eagles, and masters the sword.

 

*

Ode

Inscribed to W.H. Channing

 

Though loath to grieve
The evil time’s sole patriot,
I cannot leave
My honied thought
For the priest’s cant,
Or statesman’s rant.

If I refuse

My study for their politique,
Which at the best is trick,
The angry Muse
Puts confusion in my brain.

 

But who is he that prates
Of the culture of mankind,
Of better arts and life?
Go, blindworm, go,
Behold the famous States
Harrying Mexico
With rifle and with knife!

Or who, with accent bolder,

Dare praise the freedom-loving mountaineer?

I found by thee, O rushing Contoocook!

And in thy valleys, Agiochook!

The jackals of the negro-holder.

 

The God who made New Hampshire

Taunted the lofty land

With little men;—

Small bat and wren

House in the oak:—

If earth-fire cleave

The upheaved land, and bury the folk,
The southern crocodile would grieve.
Virtue palters; Right is hence;
Freedom praised, but hid;
Funeral eloquence
Rattles the coffin-lid.

What boots thy zeal,
O glowing friend,
That would indignant rend
The northland from the south?
Wherefore? to what good end?
Boston Bay and Bunker Hill
Would serve things still; —
Things are of the snake.

 

The horseman serves the horse,
The neatherd serves the neat,
The merchant serves the purse,
The eater serves his meat;
‘T is the day of the chattel,
Web to weave, and corn to grind;
Things are in the saddle,
And ride mankind.

There are two laws discrete,

Not reconciled,—

Law for man, and law for thing;

The last builds town and fleet,

But it runs wild,

And doth the man unking.

’T is fit the forest fall,
The steep be graded,
The mountain tunnelled,
The sand shaded,
The orchard planted,
The glebe tilled,
The prairie granted,
The steamer built.

 

Let man serve law for man;
Live for friendship, live for love,
For truth’s and harmony’s behoof;
The state may follow how it can,
As Olympus follows Jove.

 

Yet do not I implore
The wrinkled shopman to my sounding woods,
Nor bid the unwilling senator
Ask votes of thrushes in the solitudes.
Every one to his chosen work;—
Foolish hands may mix and mar;
Wise and sure the issues are.
Round they roll till dark is light,
Sex to sex, and even to odd;—
The over-god

Who marries Right to Might,
Who peoples, unpeoples,—
He who exterminates
Races by stronger races,
Black by white faces, —
Knows to bring honey
Out of the lion;
Grafts gentlest scion
On pirate and Turk.

The Cossack eats Poland,

Like stolen fruit;

Her last noble is ruined,

Her last poet mute:

Straight, into double band

The victors divide;

Half for freedom strike and stand;—

The astonished Muse finds thousands at her side.

 

*

Concord Hymn

Sung at the completion of the battle monument

April 19, 1836

 

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.

 

*

Fate

 

Deep in the man sits fast his fate

To mould his fortunes mean or great:

Unknown to Cromwell as to me

Was Cromwell’s measure or degree;

Unknown to him as to his horse,

If he than his groom be better or worse.

He works, plots, fights, in rude affairs,

With squires, lords, kings, his craft compares,

Till late he learned, through doubt and fear,

Broad England harbored not his peer:

Obeying Time, the last to own

The Genius from its cloudy throne.

For the prevision is allied

Unto the thing so signified;

Or say, the foresight that awaits

Is the same Genius that creates.

 

*

Days

 

Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,

Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,

And marching single in an endless file,

Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.

To each they offer gifts after his will,

Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all.

I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp,

Forgot my morning wishes, hastily

Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day

Turned and departed silent. I, too late,

Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn.