Poems - Household Edition

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Title: Poems
Household Edition
Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Release Date: July 7, 2004 [EBook #12843]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
0. START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS ***
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POEMS
BY
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
HOUSEHOLD EDITION
1867, 1876, 1883, 1895, 1904 AND 1911

PREFACE
In Mr. Cabot's prefatory note to the Riverside Edition of the Poems, published the year
after Mr. Emerson's death, he said:--
"This volume contains nearly all the pieces included in the POEMS and MAY-DAY of
former editions. In 1876, Mr. Emerson published a selection from his Poems, adding six
new ones and omitting many[1]. Of those omitted, several are now restored, in
accordance with the expressed wishes of many readers and lovers of them. Also some
pieces never before published are here given in an Appendix; on various grounds. Some
of them appear to have had Mr. Emerson's approval, but to have been withheld because
they were unfinished. These it seemed best not to suppress, now that they can never
receive their completion. Others, mostly of an early date, remained unpublished,
doubtless because of their personal and private nature. Some of these seem to have an
autobiographic interest sufficient to justify their publication. Others again, often mere
fragments, have been admitted as characteristic, or as expressing in poetic form thoughts

found in the Essays.
[1] Selected Poems: Little Classic Edition.
"In coming to a decision in these cases it seemed, on the whole, preferable to take the risk
of including too much rather than the opposite, and to leave the task of further winnowing
to the hands of Time.
"As was stated in the preface to the first volume of this edition of Mr. Emerson's writings,
the readings adopted by him in the Selected Poems have not always been followed here,
but in some cases preference has been given to corrections made by him when he was in
fuller strength than at the time of the last revision.
"A change in the arrangement of the stanzas of 'May-Day,' in the part representative of
the march of Spring, received his sanction as bringing them more nearly in accordance
with the events in Nature."
In the preparation of the Riverside Edition of the Poems, Mr. Cabot very considerately
took the present editor into counsel (as representing Mr. Emerson's family), who at that
time in turn took counsel with several persons of taste and mature judgment with regard
especially to the admission of poems hitherto unpublished and of fragments that seemed
interested and pleasing. Mr. Cabot and he were entirely in accord with regard to the
Riverside Edition. In the present edition, the substance of the Riverside Edition has been
preserved, with hardly an exception, although some poems and fragments have been
added. None of the poems therein printed have been omitted. "The House," which
appeared in the first volume of Poems, and "Nemesis," "Una," "Love and Thought" and
"Merlin's Songs," from the May-Day volume, have been restored. To the few mottoes of
the Essays, which Mr. Emerson printed as "Elements" in May-Day, most of the others
have been added. Following Mr. Emerson's precedent of giving his brother Edward's
"Last Farewell" a place beside the poem in his memory, two pleasing poems by Ellen
Tucker, his first wife, which he published in the Dial, have been placed with his own
poems relating to her. The publication in the last edition of some poems that Mr.
Emerson had long kept by him, but had never quite been ready to print, and of various
fragments on Poetry, Nature and Life, was not done without advice and careful
consideration, and then was felt to be perhaps a rash experiment. The continued interest
which has been shown in the author's thought and methods and life--for these unfinished
pieces contain much autobiography--has made the present editor feel it justifiable to keep
almost all of these and to add a few. Their order has been slightly altered.
A few poems from the verse-books sufficiently complete to have a title are printed in the
Appendix for the first time: "Insight," "September," "October," "Hymn" and "Riches."
After much hesitation the editor has gathered in their order of time, and printed at the end
of the book, some twenty early pieces, a few of them taken from the Appendix of the last
edition and others never printed before. They are for the most part journals in verse
covering the period of his school-teaching, study for