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On clucking hens and prating fools,
On thieves, on drudges and on dolls.
And thou shalt say to the Most High,
"Godhead! all this astronomy,
And fate and practice and invention,
Strong art and beautiful pretension,
This radiant pomp of sun and star,
Throes that were, and worlds that are,
Behold! were in vain and in vain;-
It cannot be, I will look again.1
Surely now will the curtain rise,
And earth's fit tenant me surprise;
But the curtain doth not rise,

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And Nature has miscarried wholly Into failure, into folly."

Alas! thine is the bankruptcy, Blessed Nature so to see.

Come, lay thee in my soothing shade, And heal the hurts which sin has made. I see thee in the crowd alone;

I will be thy companion.

Quit thy friends as the dead in doom, And build to them a final tomb;

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Let the starred shade that nightly falls
Still celebrate their funerals,
And the bell of beetle and of bee
Knell their melodious memory.
Behind thee leave thy merchandise,
Thy churches and thy charities;
And leave thy peacock wit behind;
Enough for thee the primal mind
That flows in streams, that breathes in wind:
Leave all thy pedant lore apart;
God hid the whole world in thy heart.
Love shuns the sage, the child it crowns,
Gives all to them who all renounce.
The rain comes when the wind calls;
The river knows the way to the sea;
Without a pilot it runs and falls,
Blessing all lands with its charity;
The sea tosses and foams to find
Its way up to the cloud and wind;
The shadow sits close to the flying ball;
The date fails not on the palm-tree tall;
And thou, go burn thy wormy pages, -
Shalt outsee seers, and outwit sages.
Oft didst thou thread the woods in vain
To find what bird had piped the strain:

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1 What has the imagination created to compare with the science of Astronomy? What is there in Paradise Lost to elevate and astonish like Herschel or Somerville? The contrast between the magnitude and duration of the things, and the animalcule observer! I hope the time will come when there will be a teleacope in street. (Journal, May, 1832.) every

Seek not, and the little eremite Flies gayly forth and sings in sight. 'Hearken once more!

I will tell thee the mundane lore.
Older am I than thy numbers wot,
Change I may, but I pass not.
Hitherto all things fast abide,
And anchored in the tempest ride.
Trenchant time behoves to hurry
All to yean and all to bury:

All the forms are fugitive,

But the substances survive.

Ever fresh the broad creation,

A divine improvisation,

From the heart of God proceeds,

A single will, a million deeds.

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Once slept the world an egg of stone,
And pulse, and sound, and light was none;
And God said, "Throb!" and there was

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And the vast mass became vast ocean. Onward and on, the eternal Pan,

Who layeth the world's incessant plan, Halteth never in one shape,

But forever doth escape,

Like wave or flame, into new forms
Of gem, and air, of plants, and worms.
I, that to-day am a pine,

Yesterday was a bundle of grass.
He is free and libertine,
Pouring of his power the wine
To every age, to every race;
Unto
every race and age
He emptieth the beverage;
Unto each, and unto all,
Maker and original.

The world is the ring of his spells,
And the play of his miracles.

As he giveth to all to drink,

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Thus or thus they are and think.
With one drop sheds form and feature;
With the next a special nature;
The third adds heat's indulgent spark;
The fourth gives light which eats the dark;
Into the fifth himself he flings,
And conscious Law is King of kings.
As the bee through the garden ranges,
From world to world the godhead changes;
As the sheep go feeding in the waste,
From form to form He maketh haste;
This vault which glows immense with light
Is the inn where he lodges for a night. 300
What recks such Traveller if the bowers
Which bloom and fade like meadow flowers

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1 Mr. Emerson wrote in his note-book in 1859: 'I have often been asked the meaning of the "Sphinx." It is this: The perception of identity unites all things and explains one by another, and the most rare and strange is equally facile as the most common. But if the mind live only in particulars, and see only differences (wanting the power to see the whole all in each), then the world addresses to this mind a question it cannot answer, and each new fact tears it in pieces and it is vanquished by the distracting variety.' (Centenary Edition.)

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2 Compare Emerson's essay on 'Self-Reliance: ' 'Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet. Let him not peep or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy, a bastard, or an interloper in the world which exists for him... Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say "I think," "I am," but quotes some saint or sage. He is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose.'

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'Thou art the unanswered question; Couldst see thy proper eye, Alway it asketh, asketh;

And each answer is a lie. So take thy quest through nature, It through thousand natures ply; Ask on, thou clothed eternity; Time is the false reply.'

Uprose the merry Sphinx,

And crouched no more in stone; She melted into purple cloud, She silvered in the moon; She spired into a yellow flame; She flowered in blossoms red; She flowed into a foaming wave: She stood Monadnoc's head.

Thorough a thousand voices

Spoke the universal dame;

'Who telleth one of my meanings

Is master of all 1 am.'

THE SNOW-STORM

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1841.

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Prig;'

Bun replied,

'You are doubtless very big;

But all sorts of things and weather
Must be taken in together,

To make up a year

And a sphere.

And I think it no disgrace
To occupy my place.

If I'm not so large as you,
You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry.
I'll not deny you make

A very pretty squirrel track;

Talents differ; all is well and wisely put; If I cannot carry forests on my back, Neither can you crack a nut.'

1840?

1846.

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THE INFORMING SPIRIT1

I

THERE is no great and no small
To the Soul that maketh all:

And where it cometh, all things are;
And it cometh everywhere.

II

I am owner of the sphere,

Of the seven stars and the solar year,
Of Cæsar's hand, and Plato's brain,

Of Lord Christ's heart, and Shakspeare's strain.

1841.

2 First printed, without title, as motto to the essay on' History.'

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TREES in groves,

Kine in droves,

1842.

In ocean sport the scaly herds,
Wedge-like cleave the air the birds,
To northern lakes fly wind-borne ducks,
Browse the mountain sheep in flocks,
Men consort in camp and town,
But the poet dwells alone.

God, who gave to him the lyre,
Of all mortals the desire,
For all breathing men's behoof,
Straitly charged him, 'Sit aloof;'
Annexed a warning, poets say,
To the bright premium,
Ever, when twain together play,
Shall the harp be dumb.

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1 It does not appear in what year Mr. Emerson first read in translation the poems of Saadi, but although in later years he seems to have been strangely stimulated by Hafiz, whom he names the prince of Persian poets,' yet Saadi was his first love; indeed, he adopted his name, in its various modifications, for the ideal poet, and under it describes his own longings and his most intimate experiences. (E. W. EMERSON.)

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Sad-eyed Fakirs swiftly say
Endless dirges to decay,
Never in the blaze of light
Lose the shudder of midnight;
Pale at overflowing noon

Hear wolves barking at the moon;
In the bower of dalliance sweet

Hear the far Avenger's feet:

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And shake before those awful Powers,
Who in their pride forgive not ours.
Thus the sad-eyed Fakirs preach:
'Bard, when thee would Allah teach, 60
And lift thee to his holy mount,
He sends thee from his bitter fount
Wormwood, saying, "Go thy ways;
Drink not the Malaga of praise,
But do the deed thy fellows hate,
And compromise thy peaceful state;
Smite the white breasts which thee fed,
Stuff sharp thorns beneath the head
Of them thou shouldst have comforted;
For out of woe and out of crime
Draws the heart a lore sublime.""
And yet it seemeth not to me
That the high gods love tragedy;
For Saadi sat in the sun,

And thanks was his contrition;
For haircloth and for bloody whips,
Had active hands and smiling lips;
And yet his runes he rightly read,
And to his folk his message sped.
Sunshine in his heart transferred

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