The Earth
OUR eyeless bark sails free,
Though with boom and spar
Andes, Alp, or Himmalee
Strikes never moon or star.
poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Waves
ALL day the waves assailed the rock,
I heard no church-bell chime;
The sea-beat scorns the minster clock
And breaks the glass of Time.
poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Painting And Sculpture
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.
poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Letters
Every day brings a ship,
Every ship brings a word;
Well for those who have no fear,
Looking seaward well assured
That the word the vessel brings
Is the word they wish to hear.
poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Eros
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.
poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Suum Cuique
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.
poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Compensation
Why should I keep holiday,
When other men have none?
Why but because when these are gay,
I sit and mourn alone.
And why when mirth unseals all tongues
Should mine alone be dumb?
Ah! late I spoke to silent throngs,
And now their hour is come.
poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Trust Thyself
Man is his own star; and the soul that can
Render an honest and a perfect man,
Commands all light, all influence, all fate;
Nothing to him falls early or too late.
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.
poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Grace
How much, preventing God! how much I owe
To the defenses thou hast round me set:
Example, custom, fear, occasional slow,
These scorned bondmen were my parapet.
I dare not peep over this parapet
To gauge with glance the roaring gulf beelow,
The depths of sin to which I had descended,
Had not these me against myself defended.
poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Culture
Can rules or tutors educate
The semigod whom we await?
He must be musical,
Tremulous, impressional,
Alive to gentle influence
Of landscape and of sky,
And tender to the spirit-touch
Of man's or maiden's eye:
But, to his native centre fast,
Shall into Future fuse the Past,
And the world's flowing fates in his own mould recast.
poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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