‘In Walden wood the chickadee’

‘Star seer Copernicus’

‘At last the poet spoke’

‘I grieve that better souls than mine’

Nantasket

Water

‘Where the fungus broad & red’

‘From the stores of eldest Matter’

‘And the best gift of God’

‘Stout Sparta shrined the god of Laughter’

‘Brother, no decrepitude’

‘Who knows this or that’

‘Saadi loved the new & old’

‘And as the light divided the dark’

‘When devils bite’

‘Comfort with a purring cat’

‘I cannot find a place so lonely’

‘This shining hour is an edifice’

‘The sparrow is rich in her nest’

‘Bended to fops who bent to him’

Elizabeth Hoar

‘Cloud upon cloud’

‘Since the devil hopping on’

‘Poets are colorpots’

‘Thanks to those who go & come’

‘I must not borrow light’

‘Comrade of the snow & wind’

‘God only knew how Saadi dined’

‘Friends to me are frozen wine’

‘That each should in his house abide’

New England Capitalist

‘On a raisin stone’

‘Go out into Nature and plant trees’

‘Pale Genius roves alone’

‘Burn your literary verses’

‘Intellect gravely broods apart on joy’

‘The civil world will much forgive’

‘Mask thy wisdom with delight’

‘Roomy Eternity’

Terminus

‘More sweet than my refrain’

‘O Boston city lecture-hearing’

‘A patch of meadow & upland’

‘And he like me is not too proud’

‘Park & ponds are good by day’

‘For Lyra yet shall be the pole’

‘A score of airy miles will smooth’

‘All things rehearse’

‘Pedants all’

‘I leave the book, I leave the wine’

‘Easy to match what others do’

‘If wishes would carry me over the land’

Maia

‘Seyd planted where the deluge ploughed’

‘Forbore the ant hill, shunned to tread’

‘Borrow Urania’s subtile wings’

‘The comrade or the book is good’

‘Is the pace of nature slow?’

‘Why honor the new men’

‘Think not the gods receive thy prayer’

‘Inspired we must forget our books’

‘Upon a rock yet uncreate’

LONGER POEMS

Woodnotes I

May-Day

The Adirondacs

From The Poet

From
POEMS (1847)

THE RHODORA
On Being Asked, Whence Is the Flower?

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.

THE HUMBLE-BEE

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,