Economize the failing river,

Not the less revere the Giver,

Leave the many and hold the few.

Timely wise accept the terms,

Soften the fall with wary foot;

A little while

Still plan and smile,

And,—fault of novel germs,—

Mature the unfallen fruit.

Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires,

Bad husbands of their fires,

Who, when they gave thee breath,

Failed to bequeath

The needful sinew stark as once,

The Baresark marrow to thy bones,

But left a legacy of ebbing veins,

Inconstant heat and nerveless reins,—

Amid the Muses, left thee deaf and dumb,

Amid the gladiators, halt and numb.’

As the bird trims her to the gale,

I trim myself to the storm of time,

I man the rudder, reef the sail,

Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime:

‘Lowly faithful, banish fear,

Right onward drive unharmed;

The port, well worth the cruise, is near,

And every wave is charmed.’

POET

To clothe the fiery thought

In simple words succeeds,

For still the craft of genius is

To mask a king in weeds.

Additional Reading

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

Emerson’s writings:

THE STANDARD edition of Emerson is The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 12 vols. (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1903–1904), the Centenary Edition. It is gradually being superseded by The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 4 vols. to date (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1971–). In addition to these collections, see also The Early Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 3 vols. (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1959–1972); The Complete Sermons of Ralph Waldo Emerson, edited by A. von Frank, one volume to date (Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1989). Emerson’s Journals were published as The Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 10 vols., edited by E.W. Emerson and W. E. Forbes (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1909–1914). More complete and more scholarly but less readable are The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 16 vols., edited by Wm. Gilman et al. (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1960–1983). See also The Poetry Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, edited by Ralph Orth et al. (Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1986). For Emerson’s letters, see The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, edited by R. L. Rusk, 6 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939). Unfortunately, this edition does not include any letters printed anywhere before 1939. Since many of Emerson’s most interesting letters had already found their way into print, Rusk’s otherwise exemplary edition presents only the milk without the cream. The supplement to Rusk’s edition currently in press at Columbia University Press, edited by Eleanor Tilton, should remedy this.

Bibliographies:

The comprehensive bibliography is Joel Myerson’s Ralph Waldo Emerson: A Descriptive Bibliography (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1982). For secondary sources see Burkholder and Myerson’s Emerson: An Annotated Secondary Bibliography (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985). A useful guide is the section on Emerson in The Transcendentalists, edited by Joel Myerson (New York: Modern Language Association, 1984). This is the standard research guide to the subject.

Biographies: