Good Reading: "The Humble-Bee" by Ralph W. Emerson (in English)

Burly, dozing humble-bee,
Where thou art is clime for me.
Let them sail for Porto Rique,
Far-off heats through seas to seek;
I will follow thee alone,
Thou animated torrid-zone!
Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer,
Let me chase thy waving lines;
Keep me nearer, me thy hearer,
Singing over shrubs and vines.


Insect lover of the sun,
Joy of thy dominion!
Sailor of the atmosphere;
Swimmer through the waves of air;
Voyager of light and noon;
Epicurean of June;
Wait, I prithee, till I come
Within earshot of thy hum,—
All without is martyrdom.


When the south wind, in May days,
With a net of shining haze
Silvers the horizon wall,
And with softness touching all,
Tints the human countenance
With a color of romance,
And infusing subtle heats,
Turns the sod to violets,
Thou, in sunny solitudes,
Rover of the underwoods,
The green silence dost displace
With thy mellow, breezy bass.


Hot midsummer's petted crone,
Sweet to me thy drowsy tone
Tells of countless sunny hours,
Long days, and solid banks of flowers;
Of gulfs of sweetness without bound
In Indian wildernesses found;
Of Syrian peace, immortal leisure,
Firmest cheer, and bird-like pleasure.


Aught unsavory or unclean
Hath my insect never seen;
But violets and bilberry bells,
Maple-sap and daffodels,
Grass with green flag half-mast high,
Succory to match the sky,
Columbine with horn of honey,
Scented fern, and agrimony,
Clover, catchfly, adder's-tongue
And brier-roses, dwelt among;
All beside was unknown waste,
All was picture as he passed.


Wiser far than human seer,
Yellow-breeched philosopher!
Seeing only what is fair,
Sipping only what is sweet,
Thou dost mock at fate and care,
Leave the chaff, and take the wheat.
When the fierce northwestern blast
Cools sea and land so far and fast,
Thou already slumberest deep;
Woe and want thou canst outsleep;
Want and woe, which torture us,
Thy sleep makes ridiculous.

Good Reading: "The Rhodora: on being asked, whencie is the flower?" by Ralph W. Emerson (in English)

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals, fallen in the pool,
Made the black water with their beauty gay;
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being:
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask, I never knew:
But, in my simple ignorance, suppose
The self-same Power that brought me there brought you.

Good Reading: "Guy" by Ralph W. Emerson (in English)

 

Mortal mixed of middle clay,

Attempered to the night and day,

Interchangeable with things,

Needs no amulets nor rings.

Guy possessed the talisman

That all things from him began;

And as, of old, Polycrates

Chained the sunshine and the breeze,

So did Guy betimes discover

Fortune was his guard and lover;

In strange junctures, felt, with awe,

His own symmetry with law;

That no mixture could withstand

The virtue of his lucky hand.

He gold or jewel could not lose,

Nor not receive his ample dues.

Fearless Guy had never foes,

He did their weapons decompose.

Aimed at him, the blushing blade

Healed as fast the wounds it made.

If on the foeman fell his gaze,

Him it would straightway blind or craze,

In the street, if he turned round,

His eye the eye 't was seeking found.

It seemed his Genius discreet

Worked on the Maker's own receipt,

And made each tide and element

Stewards of stipend and of rent;

So that the common waters fell

As costly wine into his well.

He had so sped his wise affairs

That he caught Nature in his snares.

Early or late, the falling rain

Arrived in time to swell his grain;

Stream could not so perversely wind

But corn of Guy's was there to grind:

The siroc found it on its way,

To speed his sails, to dry his hay;

And the world's sun seemed to rise

To drudge all day for Guy the wise.

In his rich nurseries, timely skill

Strong crab with nobler blood did fill;

The zephyr in his garden rolled

From plum-trees vegetable gold;

And all the hours of the year

With their own harvest honored were.

There was no frost but welcome came,

Nor freshet, nor midsummer flame.

Belonged to wind and world the toil

And venture, and to Guy the oil.

Good Reading: "Hamatreya" by Ralph W. Emerson (in English)

 HAMATREYA

Bulkeley, Hunt, Willard, Hosmer, Meriam, Flint,
Possessed the land which rendered to their toil
Hay, corn, roots, hemp, flax, apples, wool and wood.
Each of these landlords walked amidst his farm,
Saying, ''T is mine, my children's and my name's.
How sweet the west wind sounds in my own trees!
How graceful climb those shadows on my hill!
I fancy these pure waters and the flags
Know me, as does my dog: we sympathize;
And, I affirm, my actions smack of the soil.'


Where are these men? Asleep beneath their grounds:
And strangers, fond as they, their furrows plough.
Earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful boys
Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs;
Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet
Clear of the grave.
They added ridge to valley, brook to pond,
And sighed for all that bounded their domain;
'This suits me for a pasture; that 's my park;
We must have clay, lime, gravel, granite-ledge,
And misty lowland, where to go for peat.
The land is well,—lies fairly to the south.
'T is good, when you have crossed the sea and back,
To find the sitfast acres where you left them.'
Ah! the hot owner sees not Death, who adds
Him to his land, a lump of mould the more.
Hear what the Earth says:—

EARTH-SONG

'Mine and yours;
Mine, not yours.
Earth endures;
Stars abide—
Shine down in the old sea;
Old are the shores;
But where are old men?
I who have seen much,
Such have I never seen.


'The lawyer's deed
Ran sure,
In tail,
To them, and to their heirs
Who shall succeed,
Without fail,
Forevermore.


'Here is the land,
Shaggy with wood,
With its old valley,
Mound and flood.
But the heritors?—
Fled like the flood's foam.
The lawyer, and the laws,
And the kingdom,
Clean swept herefrom.


'They called me theirs,
Who so controlled me;
Yet every one
Wished to stay, and is gone,
How am I theirs,
If they cannot hold me,
But I hold them?'

When I heard the Earth-song
I was no longer brave;
My avarice cooled
Like lust in the chill of the grave.

Good Reading: "Destiny" by Ralph Waldo Emerson (in English)

That you are fair or wise is vain,

Or strong, or rich, or generous;

You must add the untaught strain

That sheds beauty on the rose.

There 's a melody born of melody,

Which melts the world into a sea.

Toil could never compass it;

Art its height could never hit;

It came never out of wit;

But a music music-born

Well may Jove and Juno scorn.

Thy beauty, if it lack the fire

Which drives me mad with sweet desire,

What boots it? What the soldier's mail,

Unless he conquer and prevail?

What all the goods thy pride which lift,

If thou pine for another's gift?

Alas! that one is born in blight,

Victim of perpetual slight:

When thou lookest on his face,

Thy heart saith, 'Brother, go thy ways!

None shall ask thee what thou doest,

Or care a rush for what thou knowest,

Or listen when thou repliest,

Or remember where thou liest,

Or how thy supper is sodden;'

And another is born

To make the sun forgotten.

Surely he carries a talisman

Under his tongue;

Broad his shoulders are and strong;

And his eye is scornful,

Threatening and young.

I hold it of little matter

Whether your jewel be of pure water,

A rose diamond or a white,

But whether it dazzle me with light.

I care not how you are dressed,

In coarsest weeds or in the best;

Nor whether your name is base or brave:

Nor for the fashion of your behavior;

But whether you charm me,

Bid my bread feed and my fire warm me

And dress up Nature in your favor.

One thing is forever good;

That one thing is Success,—

Dear to the Eumenides,

And to all the heavenly brood.

Who bides at home, nor looks abroad,

Carries the eagles, and masters the sword.

Good Reading: "To J.W." by Ralph W. Emerson (in English)

 TO J. W.

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
Of his sad ornament,
His myrrh, and wine, and rings,


His sheet of lead,
And trophies burièd:
Go, get them where he earned them when alive;
As resolutely dig or dive.


Life is too short to waste
In critic peep or cynic bark,
Quarrel or reprimand:
'T will soon be dark;
Up! mind thine own aim, and
God speed the mark!

Good Reading: "Mithridates" by Ralph W. Emerson (in English)

I cannot spare water or wine,
⁠Tobacco-leaf, or poppy, or rose;
From the earth-poles to the Line,
⁠All between that works or grows,
Every thing is kin of mine.


Give me agates for my meat;
Give me cantharids to eat;
From air and ocean bring me foods,
From all zones and altitudes;—


From all natures, sharp and slimy,
⁠Salt and basalt, wild and tame:
Tree and lichen, ape, sea-lion,
⁠Bird, and reptile, be my game.


Ivy for my fillet band;
Blinding dog-wood in my hand;
Hemlock for my sherbet cull me,
And the prussic juice to lull me;
Swing me in the upas boughs,
Vampyre-fanned, when I carouse.


Too long shut in strait and few,
Thinly dieted on dew,
I will use the world, and sift it,
To a thousand humors shift it,
As you spin a cherry.
O doleful ghosts, and goblins merry!
O all you virtues, methods, mights,
Means, appliances, delights,
Reputed wrongs and braggart rights,
Smug routine, and things allowed,
Minorities, things under cloud!
Hither! take me, use me, fill me,
Vein and artery, though ye kill me!

Good Reading: "Alphonso of Castile" by Ralph W. Emerson (in English)

I, Alphonso, live and learn,
Seeing Nature go astern.
Things deteriorate in kind;
Lemons run to leaves and rind;
Meagre crop of figs and limes;
Shorter days and harder times.
Flowering April cools and dies
In the insufficient skies.
Imps, at high midsummer, blot
Half the sun's disk with a spot;
'Twill not now avail to tan
Orange cheek or skin of man.
Roses bleach, the goats are dry,
Lisbon quakes, the people cry.
Yon pale, scrawny fisher fools,
Gaunt as bitterns in the pools,
Are no brothers of my blood;—
They discredit Adamhood.
Eyes of gods! ye must have seen,
O'er your ramparts as ye lean,
The general debility;
Of genius the sterility;
Mighty projects countermanded;
Rash ambition, brokenhanded;
Puny man and scentless rose
Tormenting Pan to double the dose.
Rebuild or ruin: either fill
Of vital force the wasted rill,
Or tumble all again in heap
To weltering Chaos and to sleep.


Say, Seigniors, are the old Niles dry,
Which fed the veins of earth and sky,
That mortals miss the loyal heats,
Which drove them erst to social feats;
Now, to a savage selfness grown,
Think nature barely serves for one;
With science poorly mask their hurt;
And vex the gods with question pert,
Immensely curious whether you
Still are rulers, or Mildew?


Masters, I 'm in pain with you;
Masters, I 'll be plain with you;
In my palace of Castile,
I, a king, for kings can feel.
There my thoughts the matter roll,
And solve and oft resolve the whole.
And, for I 'm styled Alphonse the Wise,
Ye shall not fail for sound advice.
Before ye want a drop of rain,
Hear the sentiment of Spain.


You have tried famine: no more try it;
Ply us now with a full diet;
Teach your pupils now with plenty,
For one sun supply us twenty.
I have thought it thoroughly over,—
State of hermit, state of lover;
We must have society,
We cannot spare variety.
Hear you, then, celestial fellows!
Fits not to be overzealous;
Steads not to work on the clean jump,
Nor wine nor brains perpetual pump.
Men and gods are too extense;
Could you slacken and condense?
Your rank overgrowths reduce
Till your kinds abound with juice?
Earth, crowded, cries, 'Too many men!'
My counsel is, kill nine in ten,
And bestow the shares of all
On the remnant decimal.
Add their nine lives to this cat;
Stuff their nine brains in one hat;
Make his frame and forces square
With the labors he must dare;
Thatch his flesh, and even his years
With the marble which he rears.
There, growing slowly old at ease
No faster than his planted trees,
He may, by warrant of his age,
In schemes of broader scope engage.
So shall ye have a man of the sphere
Fit to grace the solar year.

Good Reading: "The Sphinx" by Ralph W. Emerson

The Sphinx is drowsy,

⁠          Her wings are furled:

Her ear is heavy,

⁠          She broods on the world.

"Who'll tell me my secret,

⁠          The ages have kept?—

I awaited the seer

⁠          While they slumbered and slept:—

 

"The fate of the man-child,

⁠          The meaning of man;

Known fruit of the unknown;

⁠          Dædalian plan;

Out of sleeping a waking,

⁠          Out of waking a sleep;

Life death overtaking;

⁠          Deep underneath deep?

 

"Erect as a sunbeam,

⁠          Upspringeth the palm;

The elephant browses,

⁠          Undaunted and calm;

In beautiful motion

⁠          The thrush plies his wings;

Kind leaves of his covert,

⁠          Your silence he sings.

 

"The waves, unashamèd,

⁠          In difference sweet,

Play glad with the breezes,

⁠          Old playfellows meet;

The journeying atoms,

⁠          Primordial wholes,

Firmly draw, firmly drive,

⁠          By their animate poles.

 

"Sea, earth, air, sound, silence,

⁠          Plant, quadruped, bird,

By one music enchanted,

⁠          One deity stirred,—

Each the other adorning,

⁠          Accompany still;

Night veileth the morning,

⁠          The vapor the hill.

 

"The babe by its mother

⁠          Lies bathèd in joy;

Glide its hours uncounted,—

⁠          The sun is its toy;

Shines the peace of all being,

⁠          Without cloud, in its eyes;

And the sum of the world

⁠          In soft miniature lies.

 

"But man crouches and blushes,

⁠          Absconds and conceals;

He creepeth and peepeth,

⁠          He palters and steals;

Infirm, melancholy,

⁠          Jealous glancing around,

An oaf, an accomplice,

⁠          He poisons the ground.

 

"Out spoke the great mother,

⁠          Beholding his fear;—

At the sound of her accents

⁠          Cold shuddered the sphere:—

'Who has drugged my boy's cup?

⁠          Who has mixed my boy's bread?

Who, with sadness and madness,

⁠          Has turned my child's head?'"

 

I heard a poet answer

⁠          Aloud and cheerfully,

'Say on, sweet Sphinx! thy dirges

⁠          Are pleasant songs to me.

Deep love lieth under

⁠          These pictures of time;

They fade in the light of

⁠          Their meaning sublime.

 

"The fiend that man harries

⁠          Is love of the Best;

Yawns the pit of the Dragon,

⁠          Lit by rays from the Blest.

The Lethe of Nature

⁠          Can't trance him again,

Whose soul sees the perfect,

⁠          Which his eyes seek in vain.

 

"To vision profounder,

⁠          Man's spirit must dive;

His aye-rolling orb

⁠          At no goal will arrive;

The heavens that now draw him

⁠          With sweetness untold,

Once found,—for new heavens

⁠          He spurneth the old.

 

"Pride ruined the angels,

⁠          Their shame them restores;

Lurks the joy that is sweetest

⁠          In stings of remorse.

Have I a lover

⁠          Who is noble and free?—

I would he were nobler

⁠          Than to love me.

 

"Eterne alternation

⁠          Now follows, now flies;

And under pain, pleasure,—

⁠          Under pleasure, pain lies.

Love works at the centre,

⁠          Heart-heaving alway;

Forth speed the strong pulses

⁠          To the borders of day.

 

"Dull Sphinx, Jove keep thy five wits;

⁠          Thy sight is growing blear;

Rue, myrrh and cummin for the Sphinx,

⁠          Her muddy eyes to clear!"

The old Sphinx bit her thick lip,—

⁠          Said, "Who taught thee me to name?

I am thy spirit, yoke-fellow;

⁠          Of thine eye I am eyebeam.

 

"Thou art the unanswered question;

⁠          Couldst see thy proper eye,

Alway it asketh, asketh;

⁠          And each answer is a lie.

So take thy quest through nature,

⁠          It through thousand natures ply;

Ask on, thou clothed eternity;

⁠          Time is the false reply."

 

Uprose the merry Sphinx,

⁠          And crouched no more in stone;

She melted into purple cloud,

⁠          She silvered in the moon;

She spired into a yellow flame;

⁠          She flowered in blossoms red;

She flowed into a foaming wave:

⁠          She stood Monadnoc's head.

 

Thorough a thousand voices

⁠          Spoke the universal dame;

"Who telleth one of my meanings

⁠          Is master of all I am."

Good Reading: "The World-Soul" by Ralph Waldo Emerson (in English)

Thanks to the morning light,
⁠Thanks to the foaming sea,
To the uplands of New Hampshire,
⁠To the green-haired forest free;
Thanks to each man of courage,
⁠To the maids of holy mind,
To the boy with his games undaunted
⁠Who never looks behind.

Cities of proud hotels,
⁠Houses of rich and great,
Vice nestles in your chambers,
⁠Beneath your roofs of slate.
It cannot conquer folly,—
⁠Time-and-space-conquering steam,—
And the light-outspeeding telegraph
⁠Bears nothing on its beam.

The politics are base;
⁠The letters do not cheer;
And 't is far in the deeps of history,
⁠The voice that speaketh clear.
Trade and the streets ensnare us,
⁠Our bodies are weak and worn;
We plot and corrupt each other,
⁠And we despoil the unborn.

Yet there in the parlor sits
⁠Some figure of noble guise,—
Our angel, in a stranger's form,
⁠Or woman's pleading eyes;
Or only a flashing sunbeam
⁠In at the window-pane;
Or Music pours on mortals
⁠Its beautiful disdain.

The inevitable morning
⁠Finds them who in cellars be;
And be sure the all-loving Nature
⁠Will smile in a factory.
Yon ridge of purple landscape,
⁠Yon sky between the walls,
Hold all the hidden wonders
⁠In scanty intervals.

Alas! the Sprite that haunts us
⁠Deceives our rash desire;
It whispers of the glorious gods,
⁠And leaves us in the mire.
We cannot learn the cipher
⁠That 's writ upon our cell;
Stars help us by a mystery
⁠Which we could never spell.

If but one hero knew it,
⁠The world would blush in flame;
The sage, till he hit the secret,
⁠Would hang his head for shame.
Our brothers have not read it,
⁠Not one has found the key;
And henceforth we are comforted,—
⁠We are but such as they.

Still, still the secret presses;
⁠The nearing clouds draw down;
The crimson morning flames into
⁠The fopperies of the town.
Within, without the idle earth,
⁠Stars weave eternal rings;
The sun himself shines heartily,
⁠And shares the joy he brings.

And what if Trade sow cities
⁠Like shells along the shore,
And thatch with towns the prairie broad,
⁠With railways ironed o'er?—
They are but sailing foam-bells
⁠Along Thought's causing stream,
And take their shape and sun-color
⁠From him that sends the dream.

For Destiny never swerves
⁠To yields to men the helm;
He shoots his thought, by hidden nerves,
⁠Throughout the solid realm.
The patient Dæmon sits,
⁠With roses and a shroud;
He has his way, and deals his gifts,—
⁠But ours is not allowed.

He is no churl nor trifler,
⁠And his viceroy is none,—
Love-without-weakness,—
⁠Of Genius sire and son.
And his will is not thwarted;
⁠The seeds of land and sea
Are the atoms of his body bright,
⁠And his behest obey.

He serveth the servant,
⁠The brave he loves amain;
He kills the cripple and the sick,
⁠And straight begins again;
For gods delight in gods,
⁠And thrust the weak aside;
To him who scorns their charities
⁠Their arms fly open wide.

When the old world is sterile
⁠And the ages are effete,
He will from wrecks and sediment
⁠The fairer world complete.
He forbids to despair;
⁠His cheeks mantle with mirth;
And the unimagined good of men
⁠Is yeaning at the birth.

Spring still makes spring in the mind
⁠When sixty years are told;
Love wakes anew this throbbing heart,
⁠And we are never old;
Over the winter glaciers
⁠I see the summer glow,
And through the wild-piled snow-drift
⁠The warm rosebuds below.

Good Reading: "Uriel" by Ralph Waldo Emerson (in English)

It fell in the ancient periods
⁠Which the brooding soul surveys,
Or ever the wild Time coined itself
⁠Into calendar months and days.

This was the lapse of Uriel,
Which in Paradise befell.
Once, among the Pleiads walking,
Seyd overheard the young gods talking;
And the treason, too long pent,
To his ears was evident.
The young deities discussed
Laws of form, and metre just,
Orb, quintessence, and sunbeams,
What subsisteth, and what seems.
One, with low tones that decide,
And doubt and reverend use defied,
With a look that solved the sphere,
And stirred the devils everywhere,
Gave his sentiment divine
Against the being of a line.
'Line in nature is not found;
Unit and universe are round;
In vain produced, all rays return;
Evil will bless, and ice will burn.'
As Uriel spoke with piercing eye,
A shudder ran around the sky;
The stern old war-gods shook their heads,
The seraphs frowned from myrtle-beds;
Seemed to the holy festival
The rash word boded ill to all;
The balance-beam of Fate was bent;
The bounds of good and ill were rent;
Strong Hades could not keep his own,
But all slid to confusion.

A sad self-knowledge, withering, fell
On the beauty of Uriel;
In heaven once eminent, the god
Withdrew, that hour, into his cloud;
Whether doomed to long gyration
In the sea of generation,
Or by knowledge grown too bright
To hit the nerve of feebler sight.
Straightway, a forgetting wind
Stole over the celestial kind,
And their lips the secret kept,
If in ashes the fire-seed slept.
But now and then, truth-speaking things
Shamed the angels' veiling wings;
And, shrilling from the solar course,
Or from fruit of chemic force,
Procession of a soul in matter,
Or the speeding change of water,
Or out of the good of evil born,
Came Uriel's voice of cherub scorn,
And a blush tinged the upper sky,
And the gods shook, they knew not why.

Good Reading: "The Visit" by Ralph Waldo Emerson (in English)

 THE VISIT

Askest, 'How long thou shalt stay?'
Devastator of the day!
Know, each substance and relation,
Thorough nature's operation,
Hath its unit, bound and metre;
And every new compound
Is some product and repeater,—
Product of the earlier found.
But the unit of the visit,
The encounter of the wise,—
Say, what other metre is it
Than the meeting of the eyes?
Nature poureth into nature
Through the channels of that feature,
Riding on the ray of sight,
Fleeter far than whirlwinds go,
Or for service, or delight,
Hearts to hearts their meaning show,
Sum their long experience,
And import intelligence.
Single look has drained the breast;
Single moment years confessed.
The duration of a glance
Is the term of convenance,
And, though thy rede be church or state,
Frugal multiples of that.
Speeding Saturn cannot halt;
Linger,—thou shalt rue the fault:
If Love his moment overstay,
Hatred's swift repulsions play.

Good Reading: "To Rhea" by Ralph W. Emerson (in Portuguese)

Thee, dear friend, a brother soothes,
Not with flatteries, but truths,
Which tarnish not, but purify
To light which dims the morning's eye.
I have come from the spring-woods,
From the fragrant solitudes;—
Listen what the poplar-tree
And murmuring waters counselled me.


If with love thy heart has burned;
If thy love is unreturned;
Hide thy grief within thy breast,
Though it tear thee unexpressed;
For when love has once departed
From the eyes of the false-hearted,
And one by one has torn off quite
The bandages of purple light;
Though thou wert the loveliest
Form the soul had ever dressed,
Thou shalt seem, in each reply,
A vixen to his altered eye;
Thy softest pleadings seem too bold,
Thy praying lute will seem to scold;
Though thou kept the straightest road,
Yet thou errest far and broad.


But thou shalt do as do the gods
In their cloudless periods;
For of this lore be thou sure,—
Though thou forget, the gods, secure,
Forget never their command,
But make the statute of this land.
As they lead, so follow all,
Ever have done, ever shall.
Warning to the blind and deaf,
'T is written on the iron leaf,
Who drinks of Cupid's nectar cup
Loveth downward, and not up;
He who loves, of gods or men,
Shall not by the same be loved again;
His sweetheart's idolatry
Falls, in turn, a new degree.
When a god is once beguiled
By beauty of a mortal child
And by her radiant youth delighted,
He is not fooled, but warily knoweth
His love shall never be requited.
And thus the wise Immortal doeth,—
'T is his study and delight
To bless that creature day and night;
From all evils to defend her;
In her lap to pour all splendor;
To ransack earth for riches rare,
And fetch her stars to deck her hair:
He mixes music with her thoughts,
And saddens her with heavenly doubts:
All grace, all good his great heart knows,
Profuse in love, the king bestows,
Saying, 'Hearken! Earth, Sea, Air!
This monument of my despair
Build I to the All-Good, All-Fair.
Not for a private good,
But I, from my beatitude,
Albeit scorned as none was scorned,
Adorn her as was none adorned.
I make this maiden an ensample
To Nature, through her kingdoms ample,
Whereby to model newer races,
Statelier forms and fairer faces;
To carry man to new degrees
Of power and of comeliness.
These presents be the hostages
Which I pawn for my release.
See to thyself, O Universe!
Thou art better, and not worse.'—
And the god, having given all,
Is freed forever from his thrall.

Good Reading: "The Problem" by Ralph W. Emerson (in Portuguese)

I like a church; I like a cowl;
I love a prophet of the soul;
And on my heart monastic aisles
Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles;
Yet not for all his faith can see
Would I that cowlèd churchman be.


Why should the vest on him allure,
Which I could not on me endure?


Not from a vain or shallow thought
His awful Jove young Phidias brought;
Never from lips of cunning fell
The thrilling Delphic oracle;
Out from the heart of nature rolled
The burdens of the Bible old;
The litanies of nations came,
Like the volcano's tongue of flame,
Up from the burning core below,—
The canticles of love and woe:
The hand that rounded Peter's dome
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome
Wrought in a sad sincerity;
Himself from God he could not free;
He builded better than he knew;—
The conscious stone to beauty grew.


Know'st thou what wove yon woodbird's nest
Of leaves, and feathers from her breast?
Or how the fish outbuilt her shell,
Painting with morn each annual cell?
Or how the sacred pine-tree adds
To her old leaves new myriads?
Such and so grew these holy piles,
Whilst love and terror laid the tiles.
Earth proudly wears the Parthenon,
As the best gem upon her zone,
And Morning opes with haste her lids
To gaze upon the Pyramids;
O'er England's abbeys bends the sky,
As on its friends, with kindred eye;
For out of Thought's interior sphere
These wonders rose to upper air;
And Nature gladly gave them place,
Adopted them into her race,
And granted them an equal date
With Andes and with Ararat.


These temples grew as grows the grass;
Art might obey, but not surpass.
The passive Master lent his hand
To the vast soul that o'er him planned;
And the same power that reared the shrine
Bestrode the tribes that knelt within.
Ever the fiery Pentecost
Girds with one flame the countless host,
Trances the heart through chanting choirs,
And through the priest the mind inspires.
The word unto the prophet spoken
Was writ on tables yet unbroken;
The word by seers or sibyls told,
In groves of oak, or fanes of gold,
Still floats upon the morning wind,
Still whispers to the willing mind.
One accent of the Holy Ghost
The heedless world hath never lost.
I know what say the fathers wise,—
The Book itself before me lies,
Old Chrysostom, best Augustine,
And he who blent both in his line,
The younger Golden Lips or mines,
Taylor, the Shakspeare of divines.
His words are music in my ear,
I see his cowlèd portrait dear;
And yet, for all his faith could see,
I would not the good bishop be.

Good Reading: "Each and All" by Ralph W. Emerson (in Portuguese)

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 by the snow-white choir.
At last she came to his hermitage,
Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage;—
The gay enchantment was undone,
A gentle wife, but fairy none.
Then I said, 'I covet truth;
Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat;
I leave it behind with the games of youth:'—
As I spoke, beneath my feet
The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath,
Running over the club-moss burrs;
I inhaled the violet's breath;
Around me stood the oaks and firs;
Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground;
Over me soared the eternal sky,
Full of light and of deity;
Again I saw, again I heard,
The rolling river, the morning bird;—
Beauty through my senses stole;
I yielded myself to the perfect whole.

Good Reading: "Good-Bye" by Ralph W. Emerson (in English)

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,—
A 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?