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University of Virginia Library

Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882)

1.

2.

II MAY-DAY AND OTHER PIECES

3.

III ELEMENTS AND MOTTOES

4.

IV QUATRAINS AND TRANSLATIONS

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5.

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FRAGMENTS ON THE POET AND THE POETIC GIFT

[There are beggars in Iran and Araby]

[Pale genius roves alone]

[I grieve that better souls than mine]

[For thought, and not praise]

[For Fancy's gift]

[Try the might the Muse affords]

[But over all his crowning grace]

[By thoughts I lead]

[And as the light divides the dark]

[I framed his tongue to music]

[For every God]

[For art, for music over-thrilled]

[Hold of the Maker, not the Made]

[That book is good]

[Like vaulters in a circus round]

[For Genius made his cabin wide]

[The atom displaces all atoms beside]

[To transmute crime to wisdom, so to stem]

[He could condense cerulean ether]

[Forbore the ant-hill, shunned to tread,]

[I have no brothers and no peers]

[The brook sings on, but sings in vain]

[He planted where the deluge ploughed]

[For what need I of book or priest]

[Coin the day-dawn into lines]

[Ah, not to me those dreams belong]

[The Muse's hill by Fear is guarded]

[His instant thought a poet spoke]

[If bright the sun, he tarries]

[The Asmodean feat is mine]

[Slighted Minerva's learnéd tongue]

FRAGMENTS ON NATURE AND LIFE

THE BOHEMIAN HYMN

MONADNOC FROM AFAR

WRITTEN IN A VOLUME OF GOETHE

INSCRIPTION FOR A WELL IN MEMORY OF THE MARTYRS OF THE WAR

[I have an arrow that will find its mark]

6.

VI POEMS OF YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD 1823–1834

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II

The Dervish whined to Said,
“Thou didst not tarry while I prayed.
Beware the fire that Eblis burned.”
But Saadi coldly thus returned,
“Once with manlike love and fear
I gave thee for an hour my ear,
I kept the sun and stars at bay,

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And love, for words thy tongue could say.
I cannot sell my heaven again
For all that rattles in thy brain.”