Let war and trade and creeds and song The sunburnt world a man shall breed No ray is dimmed, no atom worn, TWO RIVERS. HY summer voice, Musketaquit, TH But sweeter rivers pulsing flit Through thee, as thou through Concord Plain. Thou in thy narrow banks are pent: I see the inundation sweet, I hear the spending of the stream Through years, through men, through Nature fleet, Through love and thought, through power and Musketaquit, a goblin strong, Of shard and flint makes jewels gay; So forth and brighter fares my stream,- [dream. I WALDEINSAMKEIT. DO not count the hours I spend The forest is my loyal friend, Like God it useth me. In plains that room for shadows make Bound in by streams which give and take Or on the mountain-crest sublime, Or down the oaken glade, O what have I to do with time? Cities of mortals woe-begone But in the serious landscape lone Sheen will tarnish, honey cloy, There the great Planter plants Still on the seeds of all he made The rose of beauty burns; Through times that wear, and forms that fade, Immortal youth returns. The black ducks mounting from the lake, The pigeon in the pines, The bittern's boom, a desert make Which no false art refines. Down in yon watery nook, The gray old gods whom Chaos knew, Aloft, in secret veins of air, See thou bring not to field or stone Leave authors' eyes, and fetch your own, Oblivion here thy wisdom is, TERMINUS. T is time to be old, IT To take in sail : The god of bounds, Who sets to seas a shore. Came to me in his fatal rounds, And said: "No more! No further shoot Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root. Fancy departs: no more invent, There's not enough for this and that, Not the less revere the Giver, Still plan and smile, And, fault of novel germs, Mature the unfallen fruit. The needful sinew stark as once, As the bird trims her to the gale, Right onward drive unharmed; The port, well worth the cruise, is near, THE PAST. HE debt is paid, THE The verdict said, The Furies laid, The plague is stayed, All fortunes made; Turn the key and bolt the door, Nor haughty hope, nor swart chagrin, Not the gods can shake the Past; No Satan with a royal trick Steal in by window, chink, or hole, THE LAST FAREWELL. LINES WRITTEN BY THE AUTHOR'S BROTHER, EDWARD BLISS EMERSON, WHILST SAILING OUT OF BOSTON HARBOUR, BOUND FOR THE ISLAND OF PORTO RICO, IN 1832. F AREWELL, ye lofty spires Farewell, domestic fires That broke the gloom of night! Far away, far away. |