Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The sea is the road of the bold,     Frontier of the wheat-sown plains,     The pit wherein the streams are rolled     And fountain of the rain"

"I     There are beggars in Iran and Araby,     SAID was hungrier than all;     Hafiz said he was a fly     That came to every festival."

"Never did sculptor's dream unfold     A form which marble doth not hold     In its white block; yet it therein shall find     Only the hand sec"

"I     Low and mournful be the strain,     Haughty thought be far from me;     Tones of penitence and pain,     Meanings of the tropic sea;"

"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 st"

"Among the religious customs of the dervishes is an astronomical dance, in which the dervish imitates the movements of the heavenly bodies, by spinning"

"I said to heaven that glowed above,     O hide yon sun-filled zone,     Hide all the stars you boast;     For, in the world of love     And es"

"Because I was content with these poor fields,     Low, open meads, slender and sluggish streams,     And found a home in haunts which others sco"

"Six thankful weeks,--and let it be     A meter of prosperity,--     In my coat I bore this book,     And seldom therein could I look,     For"

"In the turbulent beauty     Of a gusty Autumn day,     Poet on a sunny headland     Sighed his soul away.     Farms the sunny landscape dappl"

"I     A subtle chain of countless rings     The next unto the farthest brings;     The eye reads omens where it goes,     And speaks all lang"

"The patient Pan,     Drunken with nectar,     Sleeps or feigns slumber,     Drowsily humming     Music to the march of time.     This poor to"

"The gale that wrecked you on the sand,     It helped my rowers to row;     The storm is my best galley hand     And drives me where I go."

"Mortal mixed of middle clay,     Attempered to the night and day,     Interchangeable with things,     Needs no amulets nor rings.     Guy pos"

"When success exalts thy lot,     God for thy virtue lays a plot:     And all thy life is for thy own,     Then for mankind's instruction shown;"

"Many things the garden shows,     And pleased I stray     From tree to tree     Watching the white pear-bloom,     Bee-infested quince or plum"

"When I was born,     From all the seas of strength Fate filled a chalice,     Saying, 'This be thy portion, child; this chalice,     Less than"

"Thy foes to hunt, thy enviers to strike down,     Poises Arcturus aloft morning and evening his spear."

"Ever the Poet from the land     Steers his bark and trims his sail;     Right out to sea his courses stand,     New worlds to find in pinnace f"

"Trees in groves,     Kine in droves,     In ocean sport the scaly herds,     Wedge-like cleave the air the birds,     To northern lakes fly wi"

"His tongue was framed to music,     And his hand was armed with skill;     His face was the mould of beauty,     And his heart the throne of wi"

"Why fear to die     And let thy body lie     Under the flowers of June,     Thy body food     For the ground-worms' brood     And thy grave s"

"And Ellen, when the graybeard years     Have brought us to life's evening hour,     And all the crowded Past appears     A tiny scene of sun an"

"'Mine and yours;     Mine, not yours.     Earth endures;     Stars abide--     Shine down in the old sea;     Old are the shores;     But wh"

"I left my dreary page and sallied forth,     Received the fair inscriptions of the night;     The moon was making amber of the world,     Glitt"

"O tenderly the haughty day     Fills his blue urn with fire;     One morn is in the mighty heaven,     And one in our desire.     The cannon"

"All day the waves assailed the rock,     I heard no church-bell chime,     The sea-beat scorns the minster clock     And breaks the glass of Ti"

"Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,     Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,     Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air     H"

"Dear brother, would you know the life,     Please God, that I would lead?     On the first wheels that quit this weary town     Over yon wester"

"In countless upward-striving waves     The moon-drawn tide-wave strives;     In thousand far-transplanted grafts     The parent fruit survives;"

"Wisp and meteor nightly falling,     But the Stars of God remain."

"Seek not the spirit, if it hide     Inexorable to thy zeal:     Trembler, do not whine and chide:     Art thou not also real?     Stoop not th"

"The Sphinx is drowsy,     Her wings are furled:     Her ear is heavy,     She broods on the world.     "Who'll tell me my secret,     The age"

"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 unfu"

"The rhyme of the poet     Modulates the king's affairs;     Balance-loving Nature     Made all things in pairs.     To every foot its antipode"

"Well and wisely said the Greek,     Be thou faithful, but not fond;     To the altar's foot thy fellow seek,--     The Furies wait beyond."

"Gifts of one who loved me,--     'T was high time they came;     When he ceased to love me,     Time they stopped for shame."

"He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare,     And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.     On two days it steads not"

"In many forms we try     To utter God's infinity,     But the boundless hath no form,     And the Universal Friend     Doth as far transcend"

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

"I     Right upward on the road of fame     With sounding steps the poet came;     Born and nourished in miracles,     His feet were shod with"

"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 deg"

"The solid, solid universe     Is pervious to Love;     With bandaged eyes he never errs,     Around, below, above.     His blinding light"

"The green grass is bowing,     The morning wind is in it;     'T is a tune worth thy knowing,     Though it change every minute.     'T is a"

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

"In the deep heart of man a poet dwells     Who all the day of life his summer story tells;     Scatters on every eye dust of his spells,     Sc"

"Night-dreams trace on Memory's wall     Shadows of the thoughts of day,     And thy fortunes, as they fall,     The bias of the will betray."

"High was her heart, and yet was well inclined,     Her manners made of bounty well refined;     Far capitals and marble courts, her eye still se"

"From fall to spring, the russet acorn,     Fruit beloved of maid and boy,     Lent itself beneath the forest,     To be the children's toy."

"The sun set, but set not his hope:     Stars rose; his faith was earlier up:     Fixed on the enormous galaxy,     Deeper and older seemed his"

"The water understands     Civilization well;     It wets my foot, but prettily     It chills my life, but wittily,     It is not disconcerted,"

"Who shall tell what did befall,     Far away in time, when once,     Over the lifeless ball,     Hung idle stars and suns?     What god the el"

"I serve you not, if you I follow,     Shadowlike, o'er hill and hollow;     And bend my fancy to your leading,     All too nimble for my treadi"

"1     When the pine tosses its cones     To the song of its waterfall tones,     Who speeds to the woodland walks?     To birds and trees who tal"

"Flow, flow the waves hated,     Accursed, adored,     The waves of mutation;     No anchorage is.     Sleep is not, death is not;     Who see"

"Ah Fate, cannot a man     Be wise without a beard?     East, West, from Beer to Dan,     Say, was it never heard     That wisdom might in yout"

"I rake no coffined clay, nor publish wide     The resurrection of departed pride.     Safe in their ancient crannies, dark and deep,     Let ki"

"Thy summer voice, Musketaquit,     Repeats the music of the rain;     But sweeter rivers pulsing flit     Through thee, as thou through Concord"

"Roving, roving, as it seems,     Una lights my clouded dreams;     Still for journeys she is dressed;     We wander far by east and west."

"Winters know     Easily to shed the snow,     And the untaught Spring is wise     In cowslips and anemonies.     Nature, hating art and pains,"