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University of Virginia Library

Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882)

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2.

II MAY-DAY AND OTHER PIECES

3.

III ELEMENTS AND MOTTOES

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IV QUATRAINS AND TRANSLATIONS

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5.

FRAGMENTS ON THE POET AND THE POETIC GIFT

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FRAGMENTS ON NATURE AND LIFE

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[The patient Pan]

[Come search the wood for flowers]

[Where the fungus broad and red]

[For Nature, true and like in every place]

[What all the books of ages paint, I have]

[But never yet the man was found]

[Atom from atom yawns as far]

[When all their blooms the meadows flaunt]

[The sun athwart the cloud thought it no sin]

[For joy and beauty planted it]

[What central flowing forces, say]

[Day by day for her darlings to her much she added more]

[She paints with white and red the moors]

[A score of airy miles will smooth]

TRANSITION

[Parks and ponds are good by day]

[In Walden wood the chickadee]

[The low December vault in June be lifted high]

[Solar insect on the wing]

[He lives not who can refuse me]

[Seems, though the soft sheen all enchants]

[Put in, drive home the sightless wedges]

[Illusions like the tints of pearl]

[The cold gray down upon the quinces lieth]

[Samson stark, at Dagon's knee]

[But Nature whistled with all her winds]

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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342

TRANSITION

See yonder leafless trees against the sky,
How they diffuse themselves into the air,
And, ever subdividing, separate
Limbs into branches, branches into twigs,
As if they loved the element, and hasted
To dissipate their being into it.