Over me soared the eternal sky, Again I saw, again I heard, The rolling river, the morning bird;- Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-1882] BRAHMA If the red slayer think he slays, Far or forgot to me is near; Shadow and sunlight are the same; And one to me are shame and fame. They reckon ill who leave me out; And I the hymn the Brahmin sings. The strong gods pine for my abode, But thou, meek lover of the good! Find me, and turn thy back on heaven. BACCHUS BRING me wine, but wine which never grew In the belly of the grape, Or grew on vine whose tap-roots, reaching through Under the Andes to the Cape, Suffered no savor of the earth to 'scape. Let its grapes the morn salute Which feels the acrid juice Of Styx and Erebus; And turns the woe of Night, By its own craft, to a more rich delight. We buy ashes for bread; We buy diluted wine; Give me of the true, Whose ample leaves and tendrils curled Among the silver hills of heaven Draw everlasting dew; Wine of wine, Blood of the world, Form of forms, and mold of statures, That I intoxicated, And by the draught assimilated, May float at pleasure through all natures; The bird-language rightly spell, And that which roses say so well. Wine that is shed Like the torrents of the sun Up the horizon walls, Or like the Atlantic streams, which run When the South Sea calls. Water and bread, Food which needs no transmuting, Wine which is already man, Food which teach and reason can. Wine which Music is, Music and wine are one, That I, drinking this, Shall hear far Chaos talk with me; Kings unborn shall walk with me, And the poor grass shall plot and plan Quickened so, will I unlock Pour, Bacchus! the remembering wine; And the grape requite the lote! And where the infection slid, Refresh the faded tints, Recut the agèd prints, And write my old adventures with the pen Which on the first day drew, Upon the tablets blue, The dancing Pleiads and eternal men. Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-1882] THE PROBLEM I LIKE a church; I like a cowl; I love a prophet of the soul; And on my heart monastic aisles Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles: Yet not for all his faith can see Would I that cowlèd churchman be. Why should the vest on him allure, Not from a vain or shallow thought The thrilling Delphic oracle; Out from the heart of nature rolled Up from the burning core below,— The hand that rounded Peter's dome, 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 nest These temples grew as grows the grass; To the vast soul that o'er him planned; Girds with one flame the countless host, Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-1882] EVENING HYMN SLOWLY by God's hand unfurled, Mighty Maker! Here am I,- |