Skip to content
Linespedia

The Chartist's Complaint

By Ralph Waldo Emerson

Topics: classic

Day! hast thou two faces,     Making one place two places?     One, by humble farmer seen,     Chill and wet, unlighted, mean,     Useful only, triste and damp,     Serving for a laborer's lamp?     Have the same mists another side,     To be the appanage of pride,     Gracing the rich man's wood and lake,     His park where amber mornings break,     And treacherously bright to show     His planted isle where roses glow?     O Day! and is your mightiness     A sycophant to smug success?     Will the sweet sky and ocean broad     Be fine accomplices to fraud?     O Sun! I curse thy cruel ray:     Back, back to chaos, harlot Day!

AI analysis available. Enable JavaScript to interact.

About this line

"Day! hast thou two faces,..."

Exploring the themes of classic, Ralph Waldo Emerson delivers a powerful performance in "The Chartist's Complaint"... ### Why We Love This Line At Linespedia, we believe that poetry is the ultimate sanctuary for the soul...

Attribution & Rights

Author:Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Day! hast thou two faces,..." by Ralph Waldo Emerson

For usage rights, copyright concerns, or to report an issue with this content, please visit our Copyright & Report page.

Related lines

"One musician is sure,     His wisdom will not fail,     He has not tasted wine impure,     Nor bent to passion frail.     Age cannot cloud his"

"With beams December planets dart     His cold eye truth and conduct scanned,     July was in his sunny heart,     October in his liberal hand."

"Shines the last age, the next with hope is seen,     To-day slinks poorly off unmarked between:     Future or Past no richer secret folds,"

"Nature centres into balls,     And her proud ephemerals,     Fast to surface and outside,     Scan the profile of the sphere;     Knew they wh"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Ralph Waldo Emerson

About Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) was an American essayist, philosopher, and poet who led the Transcendentalist movement. His poems—including "Brahma," "The Rhodora," and "Concord Hymn"—explore nature, self-reliance, and the oversoul.

Full Bibliography
Continue Reading

"One musician is sure,     His wisdom will not fail..."

Weekly Poetic Insight

Join our literary Sanctuary

Get the most inspiring lines, poetic analysis, and secret shayaris delivered to your inbox every Sunday.