CONCORD, 1838 I reached the middle of the mountUp which the incarnate soul must climb,And paused for them, and looked around,With me who walked through space and time. Five rosy boys with morning lightHad leaped from one fair mother’s arms,Fronted the sun with hope as bright,And greeted God with childhood’s psalms. Knows he who tills […]

Deep in the man sits fast his fateTo mould his fortunes, mean or great:Unknown to Cromwell as to meWas Cromwell’s measure or degree;Unknown to him as to his horse,If he than his groom be better or worse.He works, plots, fights, in rude affairs,With squires, lords, kings, his craft compares,Till late he learned, through doubt and […]

SUNG AT THE SECOND CHURCH, AT THE ORDINATIONOF REV. CHANDLER ROBBINS We love the venerable houseOur fathers built to God;–In heaven are kept their grateful vows,Their dust endears the sod. Here holy thoughts a light have shedFrom many a radiant face,And prayers of humble virtue madeThe perfume of the place. And anxious hearts have pondered […]

The debt is paid,The verdict said,The Furies laid,The plague is stayed.All fortunes made;Turn the key and bolt the door,Sweet is death forevermore.Nor haughty hope, nor swart chagrin,Nor murdering hate, can enter in.All is now secure and fast;Not the gods can shake the Past;Flies-to the adamantine doorBolted down forevermore.None can reenter there,–No thief so politic,No Satan […]

Give to barrows, trays and pansGrace and glimmer of romance;Bring the moonlight into noonHid in gleaming piles of stone;On the city’s paved streetPlant gardens lined with lilacs sweet;Let spouting fountains cool the air,Singing in the sun-baked square;Let statue, picture, park and hall,Ballad, flag and festival,The past restore, the day adorn,And make to-morrow a new morn.So […]

Was never form and never faceSo sweet to SEYD as only graceWhich did not slumber like a stone,But hovered gleaming and was gone.Beauty chased he everywhere,In flame, in storm, in clouds of air.He smote the lake to feed his eyeWith the beryl beam of the broken wave;He flung in pebbles well to hearThe moment’s music […]

Love on his errand bound to goCan swim the flood and wade through snow,Where way is none, ‘t will creep and windAnd eat through Alps its home to find.

How much, preventing God, how much I oweTo the defences thou hast round me set;Example, custom, fear, occasion slow,–These scorned bondmen were my parapet.I dare not peep over this parapetTo gauge with glance the roaring gulf below,The depths of sin to which I had descended,Had not these me against myself defended.

Bethink, poor heart, what bitter kind of jestMad Destiny this tender stripling played;For a warm breast of maiden to his breast,She laid a slab of marble on his head. They say, through patience, chalkBecomes a ruby stone;Ah, yes! but by the true heart’s bloodThe chalk is crimson grown.

Written By Ellen Louisa Tucker Shortly BeforeHer Marriage To Mr. Emerson Love scatters oilOn Life’s dark sea,Sweetens its toil–Our helmsman he. Around him hoverOdorous clouds;Under this coverHis arrows he shrouds. The cloud was around me,I knew not whySuch sweetness crowned me.While Time shot by. No pain was within,But calm delight,Like a world without sin,Or a […]

Why should I keep holidayWhen other men have none?Why but because, when these are gay,I sit and mourn alone? And why, when mirth unseals all tongues,Should mine alone be dumb?Ah! late I spoke to silent throngs,And now their hour is come.

Thee, dear friend, a brother soothes, Not with flatteries, but truths, Which tarnish not, but purify To light which dims the morning’s eye. I have come from the spring-woods, From the fragrant solitudes;– Listen what the poplar-tree And murmuring waters counselled me. If with love thy heart has burned; If thy love is unreturned; Hide […]

It fell in the ancient periods Which the brooding soul surveys, Or ever the wild Time coined itself Into 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. […]

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 compound Is 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 it […]

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 seer While 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 […]

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 undaunted Who never looks behind. Cities of proud hotels, Houses of rich and great, Vice nestles […]

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 dies In the insufficient skies. Imps, at high midsummer, blot Half the sun’s disk with a spot; ‘Twill not now avail […]

Set not thy foot on graves; Hear what wine and roses say; The mountain chase, the summer waves, The crowded town, thy feet may well delay. Set not thy foot on graves; Nor seek to unwind the shroud Which charitable Time And Nature have allowed To wrap the errors of a sage sublime. Set not […]

I cannot spare water or wine, Tobacco-leaf, or poppy, or rose; From the earth-poles to the Line, All between that works or grows, Every thing is kin of mine. Give me agates for my meat; Give me cantharids to eat; From air and ocean bring me foods, From all zones and altitudes;– From all natures, […]

Mortal mixed of middle clay, Attempered to the night and day, Interchangeable with things, Needs no amulets nor rings. Guy possessed the talisman That all things from him began; And as, of old, Polycrates Chained the sunshine and the breeze, So did Guy betimes discover Fortune was his guard and lover; In strange junctures, felt, […]