All Poems

 / page 2970 of 3210 /
star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Ode To William H. Channing

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

Though loth to grieve
The evil time's sole patriot,
I cannot leave
My buried thought
For the priest's cant,
Or statesman's rant.

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

To Eva

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

O Fair and stately maid, whose eye
Was kindled in the upper sky
At the same torch that lighted mine;
For so I must interpret still
Thy sweet dominion o'er my will,
A sympathy divine.

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Painting And Sculpture

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

The sinful painter drapes his goddess warm,
Because she still is naked, being drest;
The godlike sculptor will not so deform
Beauty, which bones and flesh enough invest.

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Saadi

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

Trees in groves,
Kine in droves,
In ocean sport the scaly herds,
Wedge-like cleave the air the birds,

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Tact

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

The maiden in danger
Was saved by the swain,
His stout arm restored her
To Broadway again:

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Astræ

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

Himself it was who wrote
His rank, and quartered his own coat.
There is no king nor sovereign state
That can fix a hero's rate;

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Suum Cuique

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

The rain has spoiled the farmer's day;
Shall sorrow put my books away?
Thereby are two days lost:
Nature shall mind her own affairs,
I will attend my proper cares,
In rain, or sun, or frost.

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

The Barberry Bush

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

The bush that has most briers and bitter fruit,
Wait till the frost has turned its green leaves red,
Its sweetened berries will thy palate suit,
And thou may'st find e'en there a homely bread.

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Sursum Corda

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

Seek not the Spirit, if it hide,
Inexorable to thy zeal:
Baby, do not whine and chide;
Art thou not also real?

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Hamatreya

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

When I heard the Earth-song,
I was no longer brave;
My avarice cooled
Like lust in the chill of the grave.

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Alphonso Of Castile

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

I Alphonso live and learn,
Seeing nature go astern.
Things deteriorate in kind,
Lemons run to leaves and rind,

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Uriel

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

IT fell in the ancient periods
Which the brooding soul surveys,
Or ever the wild Time coin'd itself
Into calendar months and days.

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

The Sphinx

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

Through a thousand voices
Spoke the universal dame
"Who telleth one of my meanings
Is master of all I am."

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Forbearance

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hast thou named all the birds without a gun;
Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk;
At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse;
Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust;

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Berrying

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

"May be true what I had heard,
Earth's a howling wilderness
Truculent with fraud and force,"
Said I, strolling through the pastures,

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Dirge

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

Knows he who tills this lonely field
To reap its scanty corn,
What mystic fruit his acres yield
At midnight and at morn?

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

The Rhodora

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

On being asked, Whence is the flower?In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Compensation

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

Why should I keep holiday,
When other men have none?
Why but because when these are gay,
I sit and mourn alone.

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Blight

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

Give me truths,
For I am weary of the surfaces,
And die of inanition. If I knew
Only the herbs and simples of the wood,

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Bacchus

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

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,
Suffer no savor of the earth to scape.