All Poems

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Merlin

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

I
Thy trivial harp will never please
Or fill my craving ear;
Its chords should ring as blows the breeze,

The Park

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

The prosperous and beautiful
To me seem not to wear
The yoke of conscience masterful,
Which galls me everywhere.

And on my heart monastic aisles
Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles;
Yet not for all his faith can see,
Would I that cowled churchman be.
Why should the vest on him allure,
Which I could not on me endure?

The Bell

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

I love thy music, mellow bell,
I love thine iron chime,
To life or death, to heaven or hell,
Which calls the sons of Time.

Dæmonic Love

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

Man was made of social earth,
Child and brother from his birth;
Tethered by a liquid cord
Of blood through veins of kindred poured,

The Amulet

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

Your picture smiles as first it smiled,
The ring you gave is still the same,
Your letter tells, O changing child,
No tidings since it came.

Eros

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

The sense of the world is short,
Long and various the report,
To love and be beloved;
Men and gods have not outlearned it,
And how oft soe'er they've turned it,
'Tis not to be improved.

The Snow-Storm

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hill and woods, the river, and the heaven,

Each And All

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,
Singing at dawn on the alder bough;
I brought him home in his nest at even;
He sings the song, but it pleases not now;
For I did not bring home the river and sky;
He sang to my ear; they sang to my eye.

Initial Love

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

He palmistry can understand,
Imbibing virtue by his hand
As if it were a living root;
The pulse of hands will make him mute;
With all his force he gathers balms
Into those wise thrilling palms.

Concord Hymn

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

Loss And Gain

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

Virtue runs before the muse
And defies her skill,
She is rapt, and doth refuse
To wait a painter's will.

Brahma

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

Fable

© Ralph Waldo Emerson

The mountain and the squirrel
Had a quarrel,
And the former called the latter, "little prig":
Bun replied,

Account Of A Visit From St. Nicholas

1Later revised to "Donder and Blitzen" by Clement Clarke
Moore when he took credit for the poem in Poems (New York: Bartlett
and Welford, 1844).

Good-by

Good-by, proud world, I'm going home,
Thou'rt not my friend, and I'm not thine;
Long through thy weary crowds I roam;
A river-ark on the ocean brine,
Long I've been tossed like the driven foam,
But now, proud world, I'm going home.

The Apology

Think me not unkind and rude,
That I walk alone in grove and glen;
I go to the god of the wood
To fetch his word to men.

Ode To Beauty

Who gave thee, O Beauty!
The keys of this breast,
Too credulous lover
Of blest and unblest?

Two Rivers

I see the inundation sweet,
I hear the spending of the steam
Through years, through men, through Nature fleet,
Through love and thought, through power and dream.

Celestial Love

Higher far,
Upward, into the pure realm,
Over sun or star,
Over the flickering Dæmon film,