Though they sealed him in a rock,
Mountain chains he can unlock:
Thrown to lions for their meat,
The crouching lions kissed his feet;
Bound to the stake, no flames appalled,
But arched o'er him an honoring vault.
This is he men miscall Fate,

Threading dark ways, arriving late,
But ever coming in time to crown
The truth, and hurl wrong-doers down.
He is the oldest and best-known,

More near than aught thou call'st thy own,

Yet, greeted in another's eyes,
Disconcerts with glad surprise.
This is Jove, who deaf to prayers,
Floods with blessings unawares.
Draw, if thou canst, the mystic line
Severing rightly his from thine,

Which is human, which divine.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

L

THE FORERUNNERS

ONG I followed happy guides,

I could never reach their sides.
Their step is forth, and, ere the day,
Breaks up their leaguer, and away.
Keen my sense, my heart was young,
Right good-will my sinews strung,
But no speed of mine avails

To hunt upon their shining trails.
On and away, their hasting feet
Make the morning proud and sweet.
Flowers they strew, I catch the scent;
Or tone of silver instrument

Leaves on the wind melodious trace,
Yet I could never see their face.
On eastern hills I see their smokes
Mixed with mist by distant lochs.
I met many travellers

Who the road had surely kept;

They saw not my fine revellers,—

These had crossed them while they slept. Some had heard their fair report

In the country or the court.

Fleetest couriers alive

Never yet could once arrive,

As they went or they returned,

At the house where these sojourned.
Sometimes their strong speed they slacken
Though they are not overtaken;

In sleep their jubilant troop is near,—
I tuneful voices overhear,

It may be in wood or waste,—

At unawares 'tis come and passed.
Their near camp my spirit knows
By signs gracious as rainbows.
I thenceforward and long after
Listen for their harp-like laughter,
And carry in my heart for days
Peace that hallows rudest ways.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

LET ME GO WHERE'ER I WILL

L

ET me go where'er I will,

I hear a sky-born music still:

It sounds from all things old,

It sounds from all things young,

From all that's fair, from all that's foul,

Peals out a cheerful song.
It is not only in the rose,
It is not only in the bird,

Not only where the rainbow glows,
Nor in the song of woman heard,
But in the darkest, meanest things
There alway, alway something sings.
'T is not in the high stars alone,
Nor in the cups of budding flowers,
Nor in the red-breast's mellow tone,
Nor in the bow that smiles in showers,
But in the mud and scum of things
There alway, alway something sings.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

MY HEART LEAPS UP WHEN I BEHOLD

MYA rainbow in the sky:

Y heart leaps up when I behold

А

So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man:
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man

And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

William Wordsworth

PASSAGE TO INDIA

VAST Rondure, swimming in space!

O Cover'd all over with visible power and

beauty!

Alternate light and day, and the teeming spiritual darkness;

Unspeakable, high processions of sun and moon, and countless stars, above;

Below, the manifold grass and waters, animals, mountains, trees;

With inscrutable purpose - - some hidden, prophetic intention;

Now, first, it seems, my thought begins to span thee.

O we can wait no longer!
We too take ship, O soul!

Joyous, we too launch out on trackless seas! Fearless, for unknown shores, on waves of ecstasy to sail,

Amid the wafting winds (thou pressing me to thee, I thee to me, O soul),

Caroling free singing our song of God,
Chanting our chant of pleasant exploration.

With laugh, and many a kiss,

(Let others deprecate - let others weep for sin, remorse, humiliation ;)

O soul, thou pleasest me—I thee.

Ah, more than any priest, O soul, we too believe in God;

But with the mystery of God we dare not dally.

O soul, thou pleasest me - I thee;

Sailing these seas, or on the hills, or waking in the night,

Thoughts, silent thoughts, of Time, and Space, and Death, like waters flowing,

Bear me, indeed, as through the regions infinite, Whose air I breathe, whose ripples hear - lave me all over;

Bathe me, O God, in thee-mounting to thee,
I and my soul to range in range of thee.

O Thou transcendent!

Nameless the fibre and the breath!

Light of the light-shedding forth universes thou centre of them!

Thou mightier centre of the true, the good, the

loving!

Thou moral, spiritual

source! thou reservoir!

fountain!

affection's

(O pensive soul of me! O thirst unsatisfied!

waitest not there?

Waitest not haply for us, somewhere there, the Comrade perfect?)

Thou pulse! thou motive of the stars, suns, systems,

That, circling, move in order, safe, harmonious,
Athwart the shapeless vastnesses of space!
How should I think-how breathe a single
breath-how speak if, out of myself,
I could not launch, to those, superior universes?

Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God,

At Nature and its wonders, Time and Space and Death,

But that I, turning, call to thee, O soul, thou ac

tual Me,

And lo! thou gently masterest the orbs,

Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death,

And fillest, swellest full, the vastnesses of Space.

Greater than stars or suns,

Bounding, O soul, thou journeyest forth;

What love, than thine and ours could wider amplify?