And, through the wild-piled snowdrift,

The warm rosebuds below.

From
MAY-DAY AND
OTHER PIECES (1867)

BRAHMA

If the red slayer think he slays,

Or if the slain think he is slain,

They know not well the subtle ways

I keep, and pass, and turn again.

Far or forgot to me is near;

Shadow and sunlight are the same;

The vanished gods to me appear;

And one to me are shame and fame.

They reckon ill who leave me out;

When me they fly, I am the wings;

I am the doubter and the doubt,

And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

The strong gods pine for my abode,

And pine in vain the sacred Seven;

But thou, meek lover of the good!

Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.

NEMESIS

Already blushes in thy cheek

The bosom-thought which thou must speak;

The bird, how far it haply roam

By cloud or isle, is flying home;

The maiden fears, and fearing runs

Into the charmed snare she shuns;

And every man, in love or pride,

Of his fate is never wide.

Will a woman’s fan the ocean smooth?

Or prayers the stony Parcæ sooth,

Or coax the thunder from its mark?

Or tapers light the chaos dark?

In spite of Virtue and the Muse,

Nemesis will have her dues,

And all our struggles and our toils

Tighter wind the giant coils.

FATE

Deep in the man sits fast his fate

To mould his fortunes mean or great:

Unknown to Cromwell as to me

Was Cromwell’s measure or degree;

Unknown to him, as to his horse,

If he than his groom be better or worse.

He works, plots, fights, in rude affairs,

With squires, lords, kings, his craft compares,

Till late he learned, through doubt and fear,

Broad England harbored not his peer:

Obeying Time, the last to own

The Genius from its cloudy throne.

For the prevision is allied

Unto the thing so signified;

Or say, the foresight that awaits

Is the same Genius that creates.

FREEDOM

Once I wished I might rehearse

Freedom’s pæan in my verse,

That the slave who caught the strain

Should throb until he snapped his chain.

But the Spirit said, ‘Not so;

Speak it not, or speak it low;

Name not lightly to be said,

Gift too precious to be prayed,

Passion not to be expressed

But by heaving of the breast:

Yet, – wouldst thou the mountain find

Where this deity is shrined,

Who gives to seas and sunset skies

Their unspent beauty of surprise,

And, when it lists him, waken can

Brute or savage into man;

Or, if in thy heart he shine,

Blends the starry fates with thine,

Draws angels nigh to dwell with thee,

And makes thy thoughts archangels be;

Freedom’s secret wilt thou know? –

Counsel not with flesh and blood;

Loiter not for cloak or food;

Right thou feelest, rush to do.’

ODE SUNG IN THE TOWN HALL
Concord, July 4, 1857

O tenderly the haughty day

Fills his blue urn with fire;