On clucking hens and prating fools, And Nature has miscarried wholly Into failure, into folly." Alas! thine is the bankruptcy, Blessed Nature so to see. Come, lay thee in my soothing shade, And heal the hurts which sin has made. I see thee in the crowd alone; I will be thy companion. Quit thy friends as the dead in doom, And build to them a final tomb; 210 220 230 Let the starred shade that nightly falls 240 1 What has the imagination created to compare with the science of Astronomy? What is there in Paradise Lost to elevate and astonish like Herschel or Somerville? The contrast between the magnitude and duration of the things, and the animalcule observer! I hope the time will come when there will be a teleacope in street. (Journal, May, 1832.) every Seek not, and the little eremite Flies gayly forth and sings in sight. 'Hearken once more! I will tell thee the mundane lore. All the forms are fugitive, But the substances survive. Ever fresh the broad creation, A divine improvisation, From the heart of God proceeds, A single will, a million deeds. 250 260 Once slept the world an egg of stone, motion And the vast mass became vast ocean. Onward and on, the eternal Pan, Who layeth the world's incessant plan, Halteth never in one shape, But forever doth escape, Like wave or flame, into new forms Yesterday was a bundle of grass. The world is the ring of his spells, As he giveth to all to drink, 270 280 290 Thus or thus they are and think. 1 Mr. Emerson wrote in his note-book in 1859: 'I have often been asked the meaning of the "Sphinx." It is this: The perception of identity unites all things and explains one by another, and the most rare and strange is equally facile as the most common. But if the mind live only in particulars, and see only differences (wanting the power to see the whole all in each), then the world addresses to this mind a question it cannot answer, and each new fact tears it in pieces and it is vanquished by the distracting variety.' (Centenary Edition.) 2 Compare Emerson's essay on 'Self-Reliance: ' 'Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet. Let him not peep or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy, a bastard, or an interloper in the world which exists for him... Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say "I think," "I am," but quotes some saint or sage. He is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose.' '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 voices Spoke the universal dame; 'Who telleth one of my meanings Is master of all 1 am.' THE SNOW-STORM 120 130 1841. Prig;' Bun replied, 'You are doubtless very big; But all sorts of things and weather To make up a year And a sphere. And I think it no disgrace If I'm not so large as you, A very pretty squirrel track; Talents differ; all is well and wisely put; If I cannot carry forests on my back, Neither can you crack a nut.' 1840? 1846. THE INFORMING SPIRIT1 I THERE is no great and no small And where it cometh, all things are; II I am owner of the sphere, Of the seven stars and the solar year, Of Lord Christ's heart, and Shakspeare's strain. 1841. 2 First printed, without title, as motto to the essay on' History.' TREES in groves, Kine in droves, 1842. In ocean sport the scaly herds, God, who gave to him the lyre, 10 20 1 It does not appear in what year Mr. Emerson first read in translation the poems of Saadi, but although in later years he seems to have been strangely stimulated by Hafiz, whom he names the prince of Persian poets,' yet Saadi was his first love; indeed, he adopted his name, in its various modifications, for the ideal poet, and under it describes his own longings and his most intimate experiences. (E. W. EMERSON.) Sad-eyed Fakirs swiftly say Hear wolves barking at the moon; Hear the far Avenger's feet: 50 And shake before those awful Powers, And thanks was his contrition; 70 |