Fair the soul's recess and shrine, Magic-built to last a season; Wilt thou not ope thy heart to know From lengthening scroll of human fates, Voice of earth to earth returned, Prayers of saints that inly burned, – Saying, What is excellent, As God lives, is permanent; Hearts are dust, hearts' lores remain ; Up to his style, and manners of the sky. Built he heaven stark and cold; Lost in God, in Godhead found.' TO J. W.1 SET not thy foot on graves; Hear what wine and roses say; 260 270 280 1846. The mountain chase, the summer waves, The crowded town, thy feet may well de lay. Set not thy foot on graves; Nor seek to unwind the shroud And Nature have allowed To wrap the errors of a sage sublime. Set not thy foot on graves; 1 To John Weiss, who had written a severe judgment of Coleridge. 2 The circumstance which gave rise to this poem, though not known, can easily be inferred. Rev. William Henry Channing, nephew of the great Unitarian divine, a man most tender in his sympathies, with an apostle's zeal for right, had, no doubt, been urging his friend to join the brave band of men who were dedicating their lives to the destruction of human slavery in the United States. To these men Mr. Emerson gave honor and sympathy and active aid by word and presence on important occasions. He showed his colors from the first, and spoke fearlessly on the subject in his lectures, but his method was the reverse of theirs, affirmative not negative; he knew his office and followed his genius. He said, I have quite other slaves to free than those negroes, to wit, imprisoned spirits, imprisoned thoughts.' (E. W. EMERSON.) The wrinkled shopman to my sounding woods, Nor bid the unwilling senator Ask votes of thrushes in the solitudes. Who marries Right to Might, Races by stronger races, Black by white faces, Her last noble is ruined, Half for freedom strike and stand; And misty lowland, where to go for peat. The land is well, lies fairly to the south. 'T is good, when you have crossed the sea and back, To find the sitfast acres where you left them.' Ah! the hot owner sees not Death, who adds Him to his land, a lump of mould the more. Hear what the Earth says: Clean swept herefrom. 'They called me theirs, Who so controlled me; Yet every one Wished to stay, and is gone, If they cannot hold me, When I heard the Earth-song Like lust in the chill of the grave. FORERUNNERS 1 6c 1846. LONG I followed happy guides, Leaves on the wind melodious trace; Yet I could never see their face. On eastern hills I see their smokes, Who the road had surely kept; 10 19 These had crossed them while they slept. 1 Compare Lowell's 'Envoi, To the Muse,' and Whittier's The Vanishers;' and also, in Emerson's essay on Nature' (Essays, Second Series), the third paragraph from the end, beginning Quite analogous to the deceits in life.' |