I hang my verses in the wind,Time and tide their faults will find.
March 12, 1904.
The Emersons first appeared in the north of England, but Thomas, who landed in Massachusetts in 1638, came from Hertfordshire. He built soon after a house, sometimes railed the Saint's Rest, which still stands in Ipswich on the slope of Heart-break Hill, close by Labour-in-vain Creek. Ralph Waldo Emerson was the sixth in descent from him. He was born in Boston, in Summer Street, May 25, 1803. He was the third son of William Emerson, the minister of the First Church in Boston, whose father, William Emerson, had been the patriotic minister of Concord at the outbreak of the Revolution, and died a chaplain in the army. Ruth Haskins, the mother of Ralph Waldo Emerson, was left a widow in 1811, with a family of five little boys. The taste of these boys was scholarly, and four of them went through the Latin School to Harvard College, and graduated there. Their mother was a person of great sweetness, dignity, and piety, bringing up her sons wisely and well in very straitened circumstances, and loved by them. Her husband's stepfather, Rev. Dr. Ripley of Concord, helped her, and constantly invited the boys to the Old Manse, so that the woods and fields along the Concord River were first a playground and then the background of the dreams of their awakening imaginations.
Born in the city, Emerson's young mind first found delight in poems and classic prose, to which his instincts led him as naturally as another boy's would to go fishing, but his vacations in the country supplemented these by giving him great and increasing love of nature. In his early poems classic imagery is woven into pictures of New England woodlands. Even as a little boy he had the habit of attempting flights of verse, stimulated by Milton, Pope, or Scott, and he and his mates took pleasure in declaiming to each other in barns and attics. He was so full of thoughts and fancies that he sought the pen instinctively, to jot them down.
At college Emerson did not shine as a scholar, though he won prizes for essays and declamations, being especially unfitted for mathematical studies, and enjoying the classics rather in a literary than grammatical way. And yet it is doubtful whether any man in his class used his time to better purpose with reference to his after life, for young Emerson's instinct led him to wide reading of works, outside the curriculum, that spoke directly to him. He had already formed the habit of writing in a journal, not the facts but the thoughts and inspirations of the day; often, also, good stories or poetical quotations, and scraps of his own verse.
On graduation from Harvard in the class of 1821, following the traditions of his family, Emerson resolved to study to be a minister, and meantime helped his older brother William in the support of the family by teaching in a school for young ladies in Boston, that the former had successfully established. The principal was twenty-one and the assistant nineteen years of age. For school-teaching on the usual lines Emerson was not fitted, and his youth and shyness prevented him from imparting his best gifts to his scholars. Years later, when, in his age, his old scholars assembled to greet him, he regretted that no hint had been brought into the school of what at that very time "I was writing every night in my chamber, my first thoughts on morals and the beautiful laws of compensation, and of individual genius, which to observe and illustrate have given sweetness to many years of my life." Yet many scholars remembered his presence and teaching with pleasure and gratitude, not only in Boston, but in Chelmsford and Roxbury, for while his younger brothers were in college it was necessary that he should help. In these years, as through all his youth, he was loved, spurred on in his intellectual life, and keenly criticised by his aunt, Mary Moody Emerson, an eager and wide reader, inspired by religious zeal, high-minded, but eccentric.
The health of the young teacher suffered from too ascetic a life, and unmistakable danger-signals began to appear, fortunately heeded in time, but disappointment and delay resulted, borne, however, with sense and courage. His course at the Divinity School in Cambridge was much broken; nevertheless, in October, 1826, he was "approbated to preach" by the Middlesex Association of Ministers. A winter at the North at this time threatened to prove fatal, so he was sent South by his helpful kinsman, Rev. Samuel Ripley, and passed the winter in Florida with benefit, working northward in the spring, preaching in the cities, and resumed his studies at Cambridge.
In 1829, Emerson was called by the Second or Old North Church in Boston to become the associate pastor with Rev. Henry Ware, and soon after, because of his senior's delicate health, was called on to assume the full duty. Theological dogmas, such as the Unitarian Church of Channing's day accepted, did not appeal to Emerson, nor did the supernatural in religion in its ordinary acceptation interest him. The omnipresence of spirit, the dignity of man, the daily miracle of the universe, were what he taught, and while the older members of the congregation may have been disquieted that he did not dwell on revealed religion, his words reached the young people, stirred thought, and awakened aspiration. At this time he lived with his mother and his young wife (Ellen Tucker) in Chardon Street. For three years he ministered to his people in Boston. Then having felt the shock of being obliged to conform to church usage, as stated prayer when the spirit did not move, and especially the administration of the Communion, he honestly laid his troubles before his people, and proposed to them some modification of this rite. While they considered his proposition, Emerson went into the White Mountains to weigh his conflicting duties to his church and conscience. He came down, bravely to meet the refusal of the church to change the rite, and in a sermon preached in September, 1832, explained his objections to it, and, because he could not honestly administer it, resigned.
He parted from his people in all kindness, but the wrench was felt. His wife had recently died, he was ill himself, his life seemed to others broken up. But meantime voices from far away had reached him. He sailed for Europe, landed in Italy, saw cities, and art, and men, but would not stay long. Of the dead, Michael Angelo appealed chiefly to him there; Landor among the living. He soon passed northward, making little stay in Paris, but sought out Carlyle, then hardly recognized, and living in the lonely hills of the Scottish Border. There began a friendship which had great influence on the lives of both men, and lasted through life. He also visited Wordsworth. But the new life before him called him home.
He landed at Boston within the year in good health and hope, and joined his mother and youngest brother Charles in Newton. Frequent invitations to preach still came, and were accepted, and he even was sounded as to succeeding Dr. Dewey in the church at New Bedford; but, as he stipulated for freedom from ceremonial, this came to nothing.
In the autumn of 1834 he moved to Concord, living with his kinsman, Dr. Ripley, at the Manse, but soon bought house and land on the Boston Road, on the edge of the village towards Walden woods. Thither, in the autumn, he brought his wife. Miss Lidian Jackson, of Plymouth, and this was their home during the rest of their lives.
The new life to which he had been called opened pleasantly and increased in happiness and opportunity, except for the sadness of bereavements, for, in the first few years, his brilliant brothers Edward and Charles died, and soon afterward Waldo, his firstborn son, and later his mother. Emerson had left traditional religion, the city, the Old World, behind, and now went to Nature as his teacher, his inspiration. His first book, "Nature," which he was meditating while in Europe, was finished here, and published in 1836. His practice during all his life in Concord was to go alone to the woods almost daily, sometimes to wait there for hours, and, when thus attuned, to receive the message to which he was to give voice. Though it might be colored by him in transmission, he held that the light was universal.
"Ever the words of the Gods resound,But the porches of man's earSeldom in this low life's roundAre unsealed that he may hear."
But he resorted, also, to the books of those who had handed down the oracles truly, and was quick to find the message destined for him. Men, too, he studied eagerly, the humblest and the highest, regretting always that the brand of the scholar on him often silenced the men of shop and office where he came. He was everywhere a learner, expecting light from the youngest and least educated visitor. The thoughts combined with the flower of his reading were gradually grouped into lectures, and his main occupation through life was reading these to who would hear, at first in courses in Boston, but later all over the country, for the Lyceum sprang up in New England in these years in every town, and spread westward to the new settlements even beyond the Mississippi. His winters were spent in these rough, but to him interesting journeys, for he loved to watch the growth of the Republic in which he had faith, and his summers were spent in study and writing. These lectures were later severely pruned and revised, and the best of them gathered into seven volumes of essays under different names between 1841 and 1876. The courses in Boston, which at first were given in the Masonic Temple, were always well attended by earnest and thoughtful people. The young, whether in years or in spirit, were always and to the end his audience of the spoken or written word. The freedom of the Lyceum platform pleased Emerson. He found that people would hear on Wednesday with approval and unsuspectingly doctrines from which on Sunday they felt officially obliged to dissent.
Mr. Lowell, in his essays, has spoken of these early lectures and what they were worth to him and others suffering from the generous discontent of youth with things as they were. Emerson used to say, "My strength and my doom is to be solitary;" but to a retired scholar a wholesome offset to this was the travelling and lecturing in cities and in raw frontier towns, bringing him into touch with the people, and this he knew and valued.
In 1837 Emerson gave the Phi Beta Kappa oration in Cambridge, The American Scholar, which increased his growing reputation, but the following year his Address to the Senior Class at the Divinity School brought out, even from the friendly Unitarians, severe strictures and warnings against its dangerous doctrines. Of this heresy Emerson said: "I deny personality to God because it is too little, not too much." He really strove to elevate the idea of God. Yet those who were pained or shocked by his teachings respected Emerson. His lectures were still in demand; he was often asked to speak by literary societies at orthodox colleges. He preached regularly at East Lexington until 1838, but thereafter withdrew from the ministerial office. At this time the progressive and spiritually minded young people used to meet for discussion and help in Boston, among them George Ripley, Cyrus Bartol, James Freeman Clarke, Alcott, Dr. Hedge, Margaret Fuller, and Elizabeth Peabody. Perhaps from this gathering of friends, which Emerson attended, came what is called the Transcendental Movement, two results of which were the Brook Farm Community and the Dial magazine, in which last Emerson took great interest, and was for the time an editor. Many of these friends were frequent visitors in Concord. Alcott moved thither after the breaking up of his school. Hawthorne also came to dwell there. Henry Thoreau, a Concord youth, greatly interested Emerson; indeed, became for a year or two a valued inmate of his home, and helped and instructed him in the labors of the garden and little farm, which gradually grew to ten acres, the chief interest of which for the owner was his trees, which he loved and tended. Emerson helped introduce his countrymen to the teachings of Carlyle, and edited his works here, where they found more readers than at home.
In 1847 Emerson was invited to read lectures in England, and remained abroad a year, visiting France also in her troublous times. English Traits was a result. Just before this journey he had collected and published his poems. A later volume, called May Day, followed in 1867. He had written verses from childhood, and to the purified expression of poetry he, through life, eagerly aspired. He said, "I like my poems best because it is not I who write them." In 1866 the degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred on him by Harvard University, and he was chosen an Overseer. In 1867 he again gave the Phi Beta Kappa oration, and in 1870 and 1871 gave courses in Philosophy in the University Lectures at Cambridge.
Emerson was not merely a man of letters. He recognized and did the private and public duties of the hour. He exercised a wide hospitality to souls as well as bodies. Eager youths came to him for rules, and went away with light. Reformers, wise and unwise, came to him, and were kindly received. They were often disappointed that they could not harness him to their partial and transient scheme. He said, My reforms include theirs: I must go my way; help people by my strength, not by my weakness. But if a storm threatened, he felt bound to appear and show his colors. Against the crying evils of his time he worked bravely in his own way. He wrote to President Van Buren against the wrong done to the Cherokees, dared speak against the idolized Webster, when he deserted the cause of Freedom, constantly spoke of the iniquity of slavery, aided with speech and money the Free State cause in Kansas, was at Phillips's side at the antislavery meeting in 1861 broken up by the Boston mob, urged emancipation during the war.
He enjoyed his Concord home and neighbors, served on the school committee for years, did much for the Lyceum, and spoke on the town's great occasions. He went to all town-meetings, oftener to listen and admire than to speak, and always took pleasure and pride in the people. In return he was respected and loved by them.
Emerson's house was destroyed by fire in 1872, and the incident exposure and fatigue did him harm. His many friends insisted on rebuilding his house and sending him abroad to get well. He went up the Nile, and revisited England, finding old and new friends, and, on his return, was welcomed and escorted home by the people of Concord. After this time he was unable to write. His old age was quiet and happy among his family and friends. He died in April, 1882.
January, 1899.
Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home:Thou art not my friend, and I'm not thine.Long through thy weary crowds I roam;A river-ark on the ocean brine,Long I've been tossed like the driven foam:But now, proud world! I'm going home.Good-bye to Flattery's fawning face;To Grandeur with his wise grimace;To upstart Wealth's averted eye;To supple Office, low and high;To crowded halls, to court and street;To frozen hearts and hasting feet;To those who go, and those who come;Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home.I am going to my own hearth-stone,Bosomed in yon green hills alone,—secret nook in a pleasant land,Whose groves the frolic fairies planned;Where arches green, the livelong day,Echo the blackbird's roundelay,And vulgar feet have never trodA spot that is sacred to thought and God.O, when I am safe in my sylvan home,I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome;And when I am stretched beneath the pines,Where the evening star so holy shines,I laugh at the lore and the pride of man,At the sophist schools and the learned clan;For what are they all, in their high conceit,When man in the bush with God may meet?
Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clownOf thee from the hill-top looking down;The heifer that lows in the upland farm,Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm;The sexton, tolling his bell at noon,Deems not that great NapoleonStops his horse, and lists with delight,Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height;Nor knowest thou what argumentThy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent.All are needed by each one;Nothing is fair or good alone.I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,Singing at dawn on the alder bough;I brought him home, in his nest, at even;He sings the song, but it cheers not now,For I did not bring home the river and sky;—He sang to my ear,—they sang to my eye.The delicate shells lay on the shore;The bubbles of the latest waveFresh pearls to their enamel gave,And the bellowing of the savage seaGreeted their safe escape to me.I wiped away the weeds and foam,I fetched my sea-born treasures home;But the poor, unsightly, noisome thingsHad left their beauty on the shoreWith the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.The lover watched his graceful maid,As 'mid the virgin train she strayed,Nor knew her beauty's best attireWas woven still by the snow-white choir.At last she came to his hermitage,Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage;—The gay enchantment was undone,A gentle wife, but fairy none.Then I said, 'I covet truth;Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat;I leave it behind with the games of youth:'—As I spoke, beneath my feetThe ground-pine curled its pretty wreath,Running over the club-moss burrs;I inhaled the violet's breath;Around me stood the oaks and firs;Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground;Over me soared the eternal sky.Full of light and of deity;Again I saw, again I heard,The rolling river, the morning bird;—Beauty through my senses stole;I yielded myself to the perfect whole.
I like a church; I like a cowl;I love a prophet of the soul;And on my heart monastic aislesFall like sweet strains, or pensive smilesYet not for all his faith can seeWould I that cowlèd churchman be.Why should the vest on him allure,Which I could not on me endure?Not from a vain or shallow thoughtHis awful Jove young Phidias brought;Never from lips of cunning fellThe thrilling Delphic oracle;Out from the heart of nature rolledThe burdens of the Bible old;The litanies of nations came,Like the volcano's tongue of flame,Up from the burning core below,—The canticles of love and woe:The hand that rounded Peter's domeAnd groined the aisles of Christian RomeWrought in a sad sincerity;Himself from God he could not free;He builded better than he knew;—The conscious stone to beauty grew.Know'st thou what wove yon woodbird's nestOf leaves, and feathers from her breast?Or how the fish outbuilt her shell,Painting with morn each annual cell?Or how the sacred pine-tree addsTo her old leaves new myriads?Such and so grew these holy piles,Whilst love and terror laid the tiles.Earth proudly wears the Parthenon,As the best gem upon her zone,And Morning opes with haste her lidsTo gaze upon the Pyramids;O'er England's abbeys bends the sky,As on its friends, with kindred eye;For out of Thought's interior sphereThese wonders rose to upper air;And Nature gladly gave them place,Adopted them into her race,And granted them an equal dateWith Andes and with Ararat.These temples grew as grows the grass;Art might obey, but not surpass.The passive Master lent his handTo the vast soul that o'er him planned;And the same power that reared the shrineBestrode the tribes that knelt within.Ever the fiery PentecostGirds with one flame the countless host,Trances the heart through chanting choirs,And through the priest the mind inspires.The word unto the prophet spokenWas writ on tables yet unbroken;The word by seers or sibyls told,In groves of oak, or fanes of gold,Still floats upon the morning wind,Still whispers to the willing mind.One accent of the Holy GhostThe heedless world hath never lost.I know what say the fathers wise,—The Book itself before me lies,OldChrysostom, best Augustine,And he who blent both in his line,The youngerGolden Lipsor mines,Taylor, the Shakspeare of divines.His words are music in my ear,I see his cowlèd portrait dear;And yet, for all his faith could see,I would not the good bishop be.
Thee, dear friend, a brother soothes,Not with flatteries, but truths,Which tarnish not, but purifyTo light which dims the morning's eye.I have come from the spring-woods,From the fragrant solitudes;—Listen what the poplar-treeAnd murmuring waters counselled me.If with love thy heart has burned;If thy love is unreturned;Hide thy grief within thy breast,Though it tear thee unexpressed;For when love has once departedFrom the eyes of the false-hearted,And one by one has torn off quiteThe bandages of purple light;Though thou wert the loveliestForm the soul had ever dressed,Thou shalt seem, in each reply,A vixen to his altered eye;Thy softest pleadings seem too bold,Thy praying lute will seem to scold;Though thou kept the straightest road,Yet thou errest far and broad.But thou shalt do as do the godsIn their cloudless periods;For of this lore be thou sure,—Though thou forget, the gods, secure,Forget never their command,But make the statute of this land.As they lead, so follow all,Ever have done, ever shall.Warning to the blind and deaf,'T is written on the iron leaf,Who drinks of Cupid's nectar cupLoveth downward, and not up;He who loves, of gods or men,Shall not by the same be loved again;His sweetheart's idolatryFalls, in turn, a new degree.When a god is once beguiledBy beauty of a mortal childAnd by her radiant youth delighted,He is not fooled, but warily knowethHis love shall never be requited.And thus the wise Immortal doeth,—'T is his study and delightTo bless that creature day and night;From all evils to defend her;In her lap to pour all splendor;To ransack earth for riches rare,And fetch her stars to deck her hair:He mixes music with her thoughts,And saddens her with heavenly doubts:All grace, all good his great heart knows,Profuse in love, the king bestows,Saying, 'Hearken! Earth, Sea, Air!This monument of my despairBuild I to the All-Good, All-Fair.Not for a private good,But I, from my beatitude,Albeit scorned as none was scorned,Adorn her as was none adorned.I make this maiden an ensampleTo Nature, through her kingdoms ample,Whereby to model newer races,Statelier forms and fairer faces;To carry man to new degreesOf power and of comeliness.These presents be the hostagesWhich I pawn for my release.See to thyself, O Universe!Thou art better, and not worse.'—And the god, having given all,Is freed forever from his thrall.
Askest, 'How long thou shalt stay?'Devastator of the day!Know, each substance and relation,Thorough nature's operation,Hath its unit, bound and metre;And every new compoundIs some product and repeater,—Product of the earlier found.But the unit of the visit,The encounter of the wise,—Say, what other metre is itThan the meeting of the eyes?Nature poureth into natureThrough the channels of that feature,Riding on the ray of sight,Fleeter far than whirlwinds go,Or for service, or delight,Hearts to hearts their meaning show,Sum their long experience,And import intelligence.Single look has drained the breast;Single moment years confessed.The duration of a glanceIs the term of convenance,And, though thy rede be church or state,Frugal multiples of that.Speeding Saturn cannot halt;Linger,—thou shalt rue the fault:If Love his moment overstay,Hatred's swift repulsions play.
It fell in the ancient periodsWhich the brooding soul surveys,Or ever the wild Time coined itselfInto calendar months and days.This was the lapse of Uriel,Which in Paradise befell.Once, among the Pleiads walking,Seyd overheard the young gods talking;And the treason, too long pent,To his ears was evident.The young deities discussedLaws of form, and metre just,Orb, quintessence, and sunbeams,What subsisteth, and what seems.One, with low tones that decide,And doubt and reverend use defied,With a look that solved the sphere,And stirred the devils everywhere,Gave his sentiment divineAgainst the being of a line.'Line in nature is not found;Unit and universe are round;In vain produced, all rays return;Evil will bless, and ice will burn.'As Uriel spoke with piercing eye,A shudder ran around the sky;The stern old war-gods shook their heads,The seraphs frowned from myrtle-beds;Seemed to the holy festivalThe rash word boded ill to all;The balance-beam of Fate was bent;The bounds of good and ill were rent;Strong Hades could not keep his own,But all slid to confusion.A sad self-knowledge, withering, fellOn the beauty of Uriel;In heaven once eminent, the godWithdrew, that hour, into his cloud;Whether doomed to long gyrationIn the sea of generation,Or by knowledge grown too brightTo hit the nerve of feebler sight.Straightway, a forgetting windStole over the celestial kind,And their lips the secret kept,If in ashes the fire-seed slept.But now and then, truth-speaking thingsShamed the angels' veiling wings;And, shrilling from the solar course,Or from fruit of chemic force,Procession of a soul in matter,Or the speeding change of water,Or out of the good of evil born,Came Uriel's voice of cherub scorn,And a blush tinged the upper sky,And the gods shook, they knew not why.
Thanks to the morning light,Thanks to the foaming sea,To the uplands of New Hampshire,To the green-haired forest free;Thanks to each man of courage,To the maids of holy mind,To the boy with his games undauntedWho never looks behind.Cities of proud hotels,Houses of rich and great,Vice nestles in your chambers,Beneath your roofs of slate.It cannot conquer folly,—Time-and-space-conquering steam,—And the light-outspeeding telegraphBears nothing on its beam.The politics are base;The letters do not cheer;And 'tis far in the deeps of history,The voice that speaketh clear.Trade and the streets ensnare us,Our bodies are weak and worn;We plot and corrupt each other,And we despoil the unborn.Yet there in the parlor sitsSome figure of noble guise,—Our angel, in a stranger's form,Or woman's pleading eyes;Or only a flashing sunbeamIn at the window-pane;Or Music pours on mortalsIts beautiful disdain.The inevitable morningFinds them who in cellars be;And be sure the all-loving NatureWill smile in a factory.Yon ridge of purple landscape,Yon sky between the walls,Hold all the hidden wondersIn scanty intervals.Alas! the Sprite that haunts usDeceives our rash desire;It whispers of the glorious gods,And leaves us in the mire.We cannot learn the cipherThat's writ upon our cell;Stars taunt us by a mysteryWhich we could never spell.If but one hero knew it,The world would blush in flame;The sage, till he hit the secret,Would hang his head for shame.Our brothers have not read it,Not one has found the key;And henceforth we are comforted,—We are but such as they.Still, still the secret presses;The nearing clouds draw down;The crimson morning flames intoThe fopperies of the town.Within, without the idle earth,Stars weave eternal rings;The sun himself shines heartily,And shares the joy he brings.And what if Trade sow citiesLike shells along the shore,And thatch with towns the prairie broadWith railways ironed o'er?—They are but sailing foam-bellsAlong Thought's causing stream,And take their shape and sun-colorFrom him that sends the dream.For Destiny never swervesNor yields to men the helm;He shoots his thought, by hidden nerves,Throughout the solid realm.The patient Daemon sits,With roses and a shroud;He has his way, and deals his gifts,—But ours is not allowed.He is no churl nor trifler,And his viceroy is none,—Love-without-weakness,—Of Genius sire and son.And his will is not thwarted;The seeds of land and seaAre the atoms of his body bright,And his behest obey.He serveth the servant,The brave he loves amain;He kills the cripple and the sick,And straight begins again;For gods delight in gods,And thrust the weak aside;To him who scorns their charitiesTheir arms fly open wide.When the old world is sterileAnd the ages are effete,He will from wrecks and sedimentThe fairer world complete.He forbids to despair;His cheeks mantle with mirth;And the unimagined good of menIs yeaning at the birth.Spring still makes spring in the mindWhen sixty years are told;Love wakes anew this throbbing heart,And we are never old;Over the winter glaciersI see the summer glow,And through the wild-piled snow-driftThe warm rosebuds below.
The Sphinx is drowsy,Her wings are furled:Her ear is heavy,She broods on the world."Who'll tell me my secret,The ages have kept?—I awaited the seerWhile they slumbered and slept:—"The fate of the man-child,The meaning of man;Known fruit of the unknown;Daedalian plan;Out of sleeping a waking,Out of waking a sleep;Life death overtaking;Deep underneath deep?"Erect as a sunbeam,Upspringeth the palm;The elephant browses,Undaunted and calm;In beautiful motionThe thrush plies his wings;Kind leaves of his covert,Your silence he sings."The waves, unashamèd,In difference sweet,Play glad with the breezes,Old playfellows meet;The journeying atoms,Primordial wholes,Firmly draw, firmly drive,By their animate poles."Sea, earth, air, sound, silence.Plant, quadruped, bird,By one music enchanted,One deity stirred,—Each the other adorning,Accompany still;Night veileth the morning,The vapor the hill."The babe by its motherLies bathèd in joy;Glide its hours uncounted,—The sun is its toy;Shines the peace of all being,Without cloud, in its eyes;And the sum of the worldIn soft miniature lies."But man crouches and blushes,Absconds and conceals;He creepeth and peepeth,He palters and steals;Infirm, melancholy,Jealous glancing around,An oaf, an accomplice,He poisons the ground."Out spoke the great mother,Beholding his fear;—At the sound of her accentsCold shuddered the sphere:—'Who has drugged my boy's cup?Who has mixed my boy's bread?Who, with sadness and madness,Has turned my child's head?'"I heard a poet answerAloud and cheerfully,'Say on, sweet Sphinx! thy dirgesAre pleasant songs to me.Deep love lieth underThese pictures of time;They fade in the light ofTheir meaning sublime."The fiend that man harriesIs love of the Best;Yawns the pit of the Dragon,Lit by rays from the Blest.The Lethe of NatureCan't trance him again,Whose soul sees the perfect,Which his eyes seek in vain."To vision profounder,Man's spirit must dive;His aye-rolling orbAt no goal will arrive;The heavens that now draw himWith sweetness untold,Once found,—for new heavensHe spurneth the old."Pride ruined the angels,Their shame them restores;Lurks the joy that is sweetestIn stings of remorse.Have I a loverWho is noble and free?—I would he were noblerThan to love me."Eterne alternationNow follows, now flies;And under pain, pleasure,—Under pleasure, pain lies.Love works at the centre,Heart-heaving alway;Forth speed the strong pulsesTo the borders of day."Dull Sphinx, Jove keep thy five wits;Thy sight is growing blear;Rue, myrrh and cummin for the Sphinx,Her muddy eyes to clear!"The old Sphinx bit her thick lip,—Said, "Who taught thee me to name?I am thy spirit, yoke-fellow;Of thine eye I am eyebeam."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 voicesSpoke the universal dame;"Who telleth one of my meaningsIs master of all I am."
I, Alphonso, live and learn,Seeing Nature go astern.Things deteriorate in kind;Lemons run to leaves and rind;Meagre crop of figs and limes;Shorter days and harder times.Flowering April cools and diesIn the insufficient skies.Imps, at high midsummer, blotHalf the sun's disk with a spot;'Twill not now avail to tanOrange cheek or skin of man.Roses bleach, the goats are dry,Lisbon quakes, the people cry.Yon pale, scrawny fisher fools,Gaunt as bitterns in the pools,Are no brothers of my blood;—They discredit Adamhood.Eyes of gods! ye must have seen,O'er your ramparts as ye lean,The general debility;Of genius the sterility;Mighty projects countermanded;Rash ambition, brokenhanded;Puny man and scentless roseTormenting Pan to double the dose.Rebuild or ruin: either fillOf vital force the wasted rill,Or tumble all again in heapTo weltering Chaos and to sleep.Say, Seigniors, are the old Niles dry,Which fed the veins of earth and sky,That mortals miss the loyal heats,Which drove them erst to social feats;Now, to a savage selfness grown,Think nature barely serves for one;With science poorly mask their hurt;And vex the gods with question pert,Immensely curious whether youStill are rulers, or Mildew?Masters, I'm in pain with you;Masters, I'll be plain with you;In my palace of Castile,I, a king, for kings can feel.There my thoughts the matter roll,And solve and oft resolve the whole.And, for I'm styled Alphonse the Wise,Ye shall not fail for sound advice.Before ye want a drop of rain,Hear the sentiment of Spain.You have tried famine: no more try it;Ply us now with a full diet;Teach your pupils now with plenty,For one sun supply us twenty.I have thought it thoroughly over,—State of hermit, state of lover;We must have society,We cannot spare variety.Hear you, then, celestial fellows!Fits not to be overzealous;Steads not to work on the clean jump,Nor wine nor brains perpetual pump.Men and gods are too extense;Could you slacken and condense?Your rank overgrowths reduceTill your kinds abound with juice?Earth, crowded, cries, 'Too many men!'My counsel is, kill nine in ten,And bestow the shares of allOn the remnant decimal.Add their nine lives to this cat;Stuff their nine brains in one hat;Make his frame and forces squareWith the labors he must dare;Thatch his flesh, and even his yearsWith the marble which he rears.There, growing slowly old at easeNo faster than his planted trees,He may, by warrant of his age,In schemes of broader scope engage.So shall ye have a man of the sphereFit to grace the solar year.