Ralph Waldo Emerson Poems

Give to barrows, trays, and pans
Grace and glimmer of romance;
Bring the moonlight into noon
...

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;
...

The sense of the world is short, -
Long and various the report, -
To love and be beloved;
Men and gods have not outlearned it;
...

The south-wind brings
Life, sunshine, and desire,
And on every mount and meadow
Breathes aromatic fire,
...

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

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

The sun set, but set not his hope:
Stars rose; his faith was earlier up:
Fixed on the enormous galaxy,
Deeper and older seemed his eye;
...

It is time to be old,
To take in sail:--
The god of bounds,
Who sets to seas a shore,
...

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,
...

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