The Poetical Works of George Barlow In Ten [Eleven] Volumes |
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TO RALPH WALDO EMERSON, OUR LEADER
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 | The Poetical Works of George Barlow |  |
31
TO RALPH WALDO EMERSON, OUR LEADER
Great prophet of the West! I hardly know
How to express the reverence that I feel,
The thousand thoughts that through my spirit steal.
Your words are living words,—they flicker and flow,
Dance phantom-dances, vanish, come and go:
To brain at once and spirit they appeal.
Though temples totter and pale churches reel,
You and the stars pace calmly to and fro.
How to express the reverence that I feel,
The thousand thoughts that through my spirit steal.
Your words are living words,—they flicker and flow,
Dance phantom-dances, vanish, come and go:
To brain at once and spirit they appeal.
Though temples totter and pale churches reel,
You and the stars pace calmly to and fro.
This one thing I will say that to my mind
Your rounded periods are always new,
A something fresh invariably I find,
Although by heart I thought the words I knew
The words themselves remain so deeply true
One feels as if before one had been blind.
Your rounded periods are always new,
A something fresh invariably I find,
Although by heart I thought the words I knew
The words themselves remain so deeply true
One feels as if before one had been blind.
1870.
| The Poetical Works of George Barlow | |