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Poems

Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882)

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I POEMS
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II MAY-DAY AND OTHER PIECES
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III ELEMENTS AND MOTTOES
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IV QUATRAINS AND TRANSLATIONS
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V APPENDIX
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THE POET
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FRAGMENTS ON THE POET AND THE POETIC GIFT
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[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]
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FRAGMENTS ON NATURE AND LIFE
  
THE BOHEMIAN HYMN
  
GRACE
  
INSIGHT
  
PAN
  
MONADNOC FROM AFAR
  
SEPTEMBER
  
EROS
  
OCTOBER
  
PETER'S FIELD
  
MUSIC
  
THE WALK
  
COSMOS
  
THE MIRACLE
  
THE WATERFALL
  
WALDEN
  
THE ENCHANTER
  
WRITTEN IN A VOLUME OF GOETHE
  
RICHES
  
PHILOSOPHER
  
INTELLECT
  
LIMITS
  
INSCRIPTION FOR A WELL IN MEMORY OF THE MARTYRS OF THE WAR
  
THE EXILE
  
[I have an arrow that will find its mark]
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VI POEMS OF YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD 1823–1834

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The free winds told him what they knew,
Discoursed of fortune as they blew;
Omens and signs that filled the air
To him authentic witness bare;
The birds brought auguries on their wings
And carolled undeceiving things
Him to beckon, him to warn;
Well might then the poet scorn
To learn of scribe or courier
Things writ in vaster character;
And on his mind at dawn of day
Soft shadows of the evening lay.
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