1 This and the following poem were first used as mottoes for the essays Nature' and Experience.'
2 Emerson wrote to Carlyle, February 28, 1842: My dear friend, you should have had this letter and these messages by the last steamer; but when it sailed, my son, a perfect little boy of five years and three months, had ended his earthly life. You can never sympathize with me; you can never know how much of me such a young child can take away. A few weeks ago I accounted myself a very rich man, and now the poorest of all. What would it avail to tell you anecdotes of a sweet and wonderful boy, such as we solace and
But over the dead he has no power, The lost, the lost, he cannot restore; And, looking over the hills, I mourn The darling who shall not return.
I see my empty house,
I see my trees repair their boughs; And he, the wondrous child, Whose silver warble wild Outvalued every pulsing sound Within the air's cerulean round, The hyacinthine boy, for whom Morn well might break and April bloom, The gracious boy, who did adorn The world whereinto he was born, And by his countenance repay The favor of the loving Day,
Has disappeared from the Day's eye; Far and wide she cannot find him; My hopes pursue, they cannot bind him. Returned this day, the South-wind searches, And finds young pines and budding birches; But finds not the budding man;
Nature, who lost, cannot remake him; Fate let him fall, Fate can't retake him; Nature, Fate, men, him seek in vain.
And whither now, my truant wise and sweet,
O, whither tend thy feet?
I had the right, few days ago,
Thy steps to watch, thy place to know: How have I forfeited the right?
Hast thou forgot me in a new delight? I hearken for thy household cheer, O eloquent child!
Whose voice, an equal messenger, Conveyed thy meaning mild. What though the pains and joys Whereof it spoke were toys
Fitting his age and ken,
Yet fairest dames and bearded men, Who heard the sweet request, So gentle, wise and grave, Bended with joy to his behest And let the world's affairs go by,
sadden ourselves with at home every morning and evening? From a perfect health and as happy a life and as happy influences as ever child enjoyed, he was hurried out of my arms in three short days.' (Carlyle-Emerson Correspondence, vol. i, pp. 389, 390.)
In his Journal, January 30, he wrote: This boy, in whose remembrance I have both slept and awaked so oft, decorated for me the morning star and the evening cloud, -how much more all the particulars of daily economy.... A boy of early wisdom, of a grave and even majestic deportment, of a perfect gentleness. . .
See also Cabot's Life of Emerson, vol. ii, pp. 481-489.
A while to share his cordial game, Or mend his wicker wagon-frame, Still plotting how their hungry ear That winsome voice again might hear; For his lips could well pronounce Words that were persuasions.
Gentlest guardians marked serene His early hope, his liberal mien; Took counsel from his guiding eyes To make this wisdom earthly wise. Ah, vainly do these eyes recall The school-march, each day's festival, When every morn my bosom glowed To watch the convoy on the road; The babe in willow wagon closed, With rolling eyes and face composed; With children forward and behind, Like Cupids studiously inclined; And he the chieftain paced beside, The centre of the troop allied, With sunny face of sweet repose,
To guard the babe from fancied foes. The little captain innocent
Took the eye with him as he went;
Each village senior paused to scan And speak the lovely caravan. From the window I look out To mark thy beautiful parade, Stately marching in cap and coat To some tune by fairies played; - A music heard by thee alone To works as noble led thee on.
Now Love and Pride, alas! in vain, Up and down their glances strain. The painted sled stands where it stood; The kennel by the corded wood; His gathered sticks to stanch the wall Of the snow-tower, when snow should fall; The ominous hole he dug in the sand, And childhood's castles built or planned; His daily haunts I well discern, The poultry-yard, the shed, the barn, And every inch of garden ground Paced by the blessed feet around, From the roadside to the brook Whereinto he loved to look.
Step the meek fowls where erst they ranged;
The wintry garden lies unchanged; The brook into the stream runs on; But the deep-eyed boy is gone.1
1 The chrysalis which he brought in with care and tenderness and gave to his mother to keep is still alive,
Of the most beautiful and sweet Of human youth had left the hill And garden, they were bound and still. There's not a sparrow or a wren, There's not a blade of autumn grain, Which the four seasons do not tend And tides of life and increase lend; And every chick of every bird, And weed and rock-moss is preferred. O ostrich-like forgetfulness! O loss of larger in the less!
Was there no star that could be sent, No watcher in the firmament, No angel from the countless host That loiters round the crystal coast, Could stoop to heal that only child, Nature's sweet marvel undefiled, And keep the blossom of the earth, Which all her harvests were not worth? Not mine, I never called thee mine, But Nature's heir, if I repine,
And seeing rashly torn and moved Not what I made, but what I loved, Grow early old with grief that thou Must to the wastes of Nature go, - 'Tis because a general hope
Was quenched, and all must doubt and
For flattering planets seemed to say This child should ills of ages stay. By wondrous tongue, and guided pen, Bring the flown Muses back to men. Perchance not he but Nature ailed, The world and not the infant failed. It was not ripe yet to sustain
A genius of so fine a strain, Who gazed upon the sun and moon As if he came unto his own,
And, pregnant with his grander thought, Brought the old order into doubt. His beauty once their beauty tried; They could not feed him, and he died,
and he, most beautiful of the children of men, is not here. (Journal, 1842.)
And wandered backward as in scorn, To wait an æon to be born.
Ill day which made this beauty waste, Plight broken, this high face defaced! Some went and came about the dead; And some in books of solace read; Some to their friends the tidings say; Some went to write, some went to pray; One tarried here, there hurried one; But their heart abode with none. Covetous death bereaved us all, To aggrandize one funeral. The eager fate which carried thee Took the largest part of me: For this losing is true dying; This is lordly man's down-lying, This his slow but sure reclining, Star by star his world resigning.
Men read the welfare of the times to come,
The world dishonored thou hast left.
O truth's and nature's costly lie!
O trusted broken prophecy !
O richest fortune sourly crossed!
Born for the future, to the future lost!
The deep Heart answered, 'Weepest thou? Worthier cause for passion wild If I had not taken the child.
And deemest thou as those who pore, With aged eyes, short way before, Think'st Beauty vanished from the coast Of matter, and thy darling lost? Taught he not thee the man of eld, Whose eyes within his eyes beheld Heaven's numerous hierarchy span The mystic gulf from God to man? To be alone wilt thou begin
When worlds of lovers hem thee in ? To-morrow, when the masks shall fall That dizen Nature's carnival,
The pure shall see by their own will, Which overflowing Love shall fill, "T is not within the force of fate The fate-conjoined to separate. But thou, my votary, weepest thou? I gave thee sight where is it now? I taught thy heart beyond the reach Of ritual, bible, or of speech; Wrote in thy mind's transparent table, As far as the incommunicable;
'I came to thee as to a friend; Dearest, to thee I did not send Tutors, but a joyful eye, Innocence that matched the sky, Lovely locks, a form of wonder, Laughter rich as woodland thunder, That thou might'st entertain apart The richest flowering of all art: And, as the great all-loving Day Through smallest chambers takes its way, That thou might'st break thy daily bread With prophet, savior and head;
That thou might'st cherish for thine own The riches of sweet Mary's Son, Boy-Rabbi, Israel's paragon. And thoughtest thou such guest Would in thy hall take up his rest? Would rushing life forget her laws, Fate's glowing revolution pause? High omens ask diviner guess; Not to be conned to tediousness. And know my higher gifts unbind The zone that girds the incarnate mind. When the scanty shores are full With Thought's perilous, whirling pool; When frail Nature can no more, Then the Spirit strikes the hour:
My servant Death, with solving rite, Pours finite into infinite.
Wilt thou freeze love's tidal flow,
Whose streams through Nature circling go? Nail the wild star to its track
On the half-climbed zodiac? Light is light which radiates, Blood is blood which circulates, Life is life which generates, And many-seeming life is one,
Wilt thou transfix and make it none? Its onward force too starkly pent In figure, bone and lineament? Wilt thou, uncalled, interrogate, Talker! the unreplying Fate? Nor see the genius of the whole Ascendant in the private soul, Beckon it when to go and come, Self-announced its hour of doom?
Fair the soul's recess and shrine,
Magic-built to last a season; Masterpiece of love benign, Fairer that expansive reason Whose omen 't is, and sign.
Wilt thou not ope thy heart to know What rainbows teach, and sunsets show? Verdict which accumulates
From lengthening scroll of human fates, Voice of earth to earth returned, Prayers of saints that inly burned, – Saying, What is excellent,
As God lives, is permanent;
Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain ; Heart's love will meet thee again. Revere the Maker; fetch thine eye
Up to his style, and manners of the sky. Not of adamant and gold
Built he heaven stark and cold; No, but a nest of bending reeds, Flowering grass and scented weeds; Or like a traveller's fleeing tent, Or bow above the tempest bent; Built of tears and sacred flames, And virtue reaching to its aims; Built of furtherance and pursuing, Not of spent deeds, but of doing. Silent rushes the swift Lord Through ruined systems still restored, Broadsowing, bleak and void to bless, Plants with worlds the wilderness; Waters with tears of ancient sorrow Apples of Eden ripe to-morrow. House and tenant go to ground,
Lost in God, in Godhead found.'
SET not thy foot on graves;
Hear what wine and roses say;
The mountain chase, the summer waves,
The crowded town, thy feet may well delay.
Set not thy foot on graves;
Nor seek to unwind the shroud Which charitable Time
And Nature have allowed
To wrap the errors of a sage sublime.
Set not thy foot on graves; Care not to strip the dead
1 To John Weiss, who had written a severe judgment of Coleridge.
The circumstance which gave rise to this poem, though not known, can easily be inferred. Rev. William Henry Channing, nephew of the great Unitarian divine, a man most tender in his sympathies, with an apostle's zeal for right, had, no doubt, been urging his friend to join the brave band of men who were dedicating their lives to the destruction of human slavery in the United States. To these men Mr. Emerson gave honor and sympathy and active aid by word and presence on important occasions. He showed his colors from the first, and spoke fearlessly on the subject in his lectures, but his method was the reverse of theirs, affirmative not negative; he knew his office and followed his genius. He said, I have quite other slaves to free than those negroes, to wit, imprisoned spirits, imprisoned thoughts.' (E. W. EMERSON.)
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