Poems - Household Edition | Page 5

A later volume, called May Day,
followed in 1867. He had written verses from childhood, and to the purified expression of
poetry he, through life, eagerly aspired. He said, "I like my poems best because it is not I
who write them." In 1866 the degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred on him by Harvard
University, and he was chosen an Overseer. In 1867 he again gave the Phi Beta Kappa
oration, and in 1870 and 1871 gave courses in Philosophy in the University Lectures at
Cambridge.
Emerson was not merely a man of letters. He recognized and did the private and public
duties of the hour. He exercised a wide hospitality to souls as well as bodies. Eager
youths came to him for rules, and went away with light. Reformers, wise and unwise,
came to him, and were kindly received. They were often disappointed that they could not
harness him to their partial and transient scheme. He said, My reforms include theirs: I
must go my way; help people by my strength, not by my weakness. But if a storm
threatened, he felt bound to appear and show his colors. Against the crying evils of his
time he worked bravely in his own way. He wrote to President Van Buren against the
wrong done to the Cherokees, dared speak against the idolized Webster, when he
deserted the cause of Freedom, constantly spoke of the iniquity of slavery, aided with
speech and money the Free State cause in Kansas, was at Phillips's side at the antislavery
meeting in 1861 broken up by the Boston mob, urged emancipation during the war.
He enjoyed his Concord home and neighbors, served on the school committee for years,
did much for the Lyceum, and spoke on the town's great occasions. He went to all
town-meetings, oftener to listen and admire than to speak, and always took pleasure and
pride in the people. In return he was respected and loved by them.
Emerson's house was destroyed by fire in 1872, and the incident exposure and fatigue did
him harm. His many friends insisted on rebuilding his house and sending him abroad to
get well. He went up the Nile, and revisited England, finding old and new friends, and, on

his return, was welcomed and escorted home by the people of Concord. After this time he
was unable to write. His old age was quiet and happy among his family and friends. He
died in April, 1882.
EDWARD W. EMERSON.
January, 1899.

I
POEMS

GOOD-BYE
Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home:
Thou art not my friend, and I'm not thine.

Long through thy weary crowds I roam;
A river-ark on the ocean brine,
Long I've
been tossed like the driven foam:
But now, proud world! I'm going home.
Good-bye to Flattery's fawning face;
To Grandeur with his wise grimace;
To upstart
Wealth's averted eye;
To supple Office, low and high;
To crowded halls, to court and
street;
To frozen hearts and hasting feet;
To those who go, and those who come;

Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home.
I am going to my own hearth-stone,
Bosomed in yon green hills alone,--
secret nook
in a pleasant land,
Whose groves the frolic fairies planned;
Where arches green, the
livelong day,
Echo the blackbird's roundelay,
And vulgar feet have never trod
A
spot that is sacred to thought and God.
O, when I am safe in my sylvan home,
I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome;
And
when I am stretched beneath the pines,
Where the evening star so holy shines,
I laugh
at the lore and the pride of man,
At the sophist schools and the learned clan;
For what
are they all, in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet?
EACH AND ALL
Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown
Of thee from the hill-top looking down;

The heifer that lows in the upland farm,
Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm;

The sexton, tolling his bell at noon,
Deems not that great Napoleon
Stops his horse,
and lists with delight,
Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height;

Nor knowest
thou what argument
Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent.
All are needed by each
one;
Nothing is fair or good alone.
I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,

Singing at dawn on the alder bough;
I brought him home, in his nest, at even;
He

sings the song, but it cheers not now,
For I did not bring home the river and sky;--
He
sang to my ear,--they sang to my eye.
The delicate shells lay on the shore;
The
bubbles of the latest wave
Fresh pearls to their enamel gave,
And the bellowing of the
savage sea
Greeted their safe escape to me.
I wiped away the weeds and foam,
I
fetched my sea-born treasures home;
But the poor, unsightly, noisome things
Had left
their beauty on the shore
With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.
The lover
watched his graceful maid,
As 'mid the virgin train she strayed,
Nor knew her
beauty's best attire
Was woven still