ODE TO BEAUTY

WHO gave thee, O Beauty,
The keys of this breast,
Too credulous lover
Of blest and unblest?
Say, when in lapsed ages
Thee knew I of old?
Or what was the service
For which I was sold?
When first my eyes saw thee,
I found me thy thrall,
By magical drawings,
Sweet tyrant of all!
I drank at thy fountain
False waters of thirst;
Thou intimate stranger,
Thou latest and first!
Thy dangerous glances
Make women of men;
New-born, we are melting
Into nature again.

Lavish, lavish promiser,
Nigh persuading gods to err !
Guest of million painted forms,
Which in turn thy glory warms!
The frailest leaf, the mossy bark,
The acorn's cup, the raindrop's arc,
The swinging spider's silver line,
The ruby of the drop of wine,
The shining pebble of the pond,
Thou inscribest with a bond,
In thy momentary play,
Would bankrupt nature to repay.

Ah, what avails it

To hide or to shun

Whom the Infinite One

Hath granted his throne?
The heaven high over
Is the deep's lover;
The sun and sea,
Informed by thee,
Before me run
And draw me on,
Yet fly me still,

As Fate refuses

To me the heart Fate for me chooses. Is it that my opulent soul

Was mingled from the generous whole; Sea-valleys and the deep of skies Furnished several supplies;

Draw me to them, self-betrayed?
I turn the proud portfolio
Which holds the grand designs
Of Salvator, of Guercino,
And Piranesi's lines.
I hear the lofty pæans
Of the masters of the shell,
Who heard the starry music
And recount the numbers well;
Olympian bards who sung
Divine Ideas below,

Which always find us young
And always keep us so.

Oft, in streets or humblest places,
I detect far-wandered graces,
Which, from Eden wide astray,

In lowly homes have lost their way.

Thee gliding through the sea of form,1
Like the lightning through the storm,
Somewhat not to be possessed,
Somewhat not to be caressed,
No feet so fleet could ever find,
No perfect form could ever bind.
Thou eternal fugitive,
Hovering over all that live,
Quick and skilful to inspire
Sweet, extravagant desire,
Starry space and lily-bell
Filling with thy roseate smell,
Wilt not give the lips to taste
Of the nectar which thou hast.

All that's good and great with thee
Works in close conspiracy;

Thou hast bribed the dark and lonely
To report thy features only,

And the cold and purple morning

Itself with thoughts of thee adorning;
The leafy dell, the city mart,
Equal trophies of thine art;
E'en the flowing azure air

Thou hast touched for my despair;
And, if I languish into dreams,
Again I meet the ardent beams.
Queen of things! I dare not die
In Being's deeps past ear and eye;
Lest there I find the same deceiver
And be the sport of Fate forever.
Dread Power, but dear! if God thou be,
Unmake me quite, or give thyself to me!

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1843.

1 Compare Emerson's 'Nature: Nature is a sea of forms.... What is common to them all, that perfectness and harmony, is Beauty.'

1 This and the following poem were first used as mottoes for the essays 'Nature' and 'Experience.'

2 Emerson wrote to Carlyle, February 28, 1842: My dear friend, you should have had this letter and these messages by the last steamer; but when it sailed, my son, a perfect little boy of five years and three months, had ended his earthly life. You can never sympathize with me; you can never know how much of me such a young child can take away. A few weeks ago I accounted myself a very rich man, and now the poorest of all. What would it avail to tell you anecdotes of a sweet and wonderful boy, such as we solace and

But over the dead he has no power, The lost, the lost, he cannot restore; And, looking over the hills, I mourn The darling who shall not return.

I see my empty house,

ΙΟ

I see my trees repair their boughs;
And he, the wondrous child,
Whose silver warble wild
Outvalued every pulsing sound
Within the air's cerulean round, -
The hyacinthine boy, for whom
Morn well might break and April bloom,
The gracious boy, who did adorn
The world whereinto he was born,
And by his countenance repay
The favor of the loving Day,
Has disappeared from the Day's eye;
Far and wide she cannot find him;
My hopes pursue, they cannot bind him.
Returned this day, the South-wind searches,
And finds young pines and budding birches;
But finds not the budding man;

Nature, who lost, cannot remake him;
Fate let him fall, Fate can't retake him;
Nature, Fate, men, him seek in vain.

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And whither now, my truant wise and sweet,

O, whither tend thy feet?

I had the right, few days ago,

Thy steps to watch, thy place to know:
How have I forfeited the right?
Hast thou forgot me in a new delight?
I hearken for thy household cheer,
O eloquent child!

Whose voice, an equal messenger,
Conveyed thy meaning mild.
What though the pains and joys
Whereof it spoke were toys

Fitting his age and ken,

Yet fairest dames and bearded men,
Who heard the sweet request,
So gentle, wise and grave,
Bended with joy to his behest
And let the world's affairs go by,

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sadden ourselves with at home every morning and eveuing? From a perfect health and as happy a life and as happy influences as ever child enjoyed, he was hurried out of my arms in three short days.' (Carlyle-Emerson Correspondence, vol. i, pp. 389, 390.)

In his Journal, January 30, he wrote: This boy, in whose remembrance I have both slept and awaked so oft, decorated for me the morning star and the evening cloud, how much more all the particulars of daily economy.... A boy of early wisdom, of a grave and even majestic deportment, of a perfect gentleness....' See also Cabot's Life of Emerson, vol. ii, pp. 481-489.

A while to share his cordial game,
Or mend his wicker wagon-frame,
Still plotting how their hungry ear
That winsome voice again might hear;
For his lips could well pronounce
Words that were persuasions.

Gentlest guardians marked serene
His early hope, his liberal mien;
Took counsel from his guiding eyes
To make this wisdom earthly wise.
Ah, vainly do these eyes recall
The school-march, each day's festival,
When every morn my bosom glowed
To watch the convoy on the road;
The babe in willow wagon closed,
With rolling eyes and face composed;
With children forward and behind,
Like Cupids studiously inclined;
And he the chieftain paced beside,
The centre of the troop allied,
With sunny face of sweet repose,
To guard the babe from fancied foes.
The little captain innocent

Took the eye with him as he went;

Each village senior paused to scan
And speak the lovely caravan.
From the window I look out
To mark thy beautiful parade,
Stately marching in cap and coat
To some tune by fairies played;-
A music heard by thee alone
To works as noble led thee on.

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Now Love and Pride, alas! in vain,
Up and down their glances strain.
The painted sled stands where it stood;
The kennel by the corded wood;
His gathered sticks to stanch the wall
Of the snow-tower, when snow should fall;
The ominous hole he dug in the sand,
And childhood's castles built or planned;
His daily haunts I well discern,

The poultry-yard, the shed, the barn,-
And every inch of garden ground
Paced by the blessed feet around,
From the roadside to the brook

Whereinto he loved to look.

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And garden, they were bound and still.
There's not a sparrow or a wren,
There's not a blade of autumn grain,
Which the four seasons do not tend
And tides of life and increase lend;
And every chick of every bird,
And weed and rock-moss is preferred.
O ostrich-like forgetfulness!

O loss of larger in the less!

Was there no star that could be sent,
No watcher in the firmament,
No angel from the countless host
That loiters round the crystal coast,
Could stoop to heal that only child,
Nature's sweet marvel undefiled,
And keep the blossom of the earth,
Which all her harvests were not worth?
Not mine, I never called thee mine,
But Nature's heir, if I repine,
And seeing rashly torn and moved
Not what I made, but what I loved,
Grow early old with grief that thou
Must to the wastes of Nature go,-
"T is because a general hope

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Was quenched, and all must doubt and

grope.

And, pregnant with his grander thought,
Brought the old order into doubt.
His beauty once their beauty tried ;
They could not feed him, and he died,

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and he, most beautiful of the children of men, is not here. (Journal, 1842.)

And wandered backward as in scorn,
To wait an æon to be born.

Ill day which made this beauty waste, 150
Plight broken, this high face defaced!
Some went and came about the dead;
And some in books of solace read;
Some to their friends the tidings say;
Some went to write, some went to pray;
One tarried here, there hurried one;
But their heart abode with none.
Covetous death bereaved us all,
To aggrandize one funeral.
The eager fate which carried thee
Took the largest part of me:
For this losing is true dying;
This is lordly man's down-lying,
This his slow but sure reclining,
Star by star his world resigning.

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Men read the welfare of the times to come,

I am too much bereft.

The world dishonored thou hast left.

O truth's and nature's costly lie!

O trusted broken prophecy!

O richest fortune sourly crossed! ·

Born for the future, to the future lost!

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The deep Heart answered, 'Weepest thou?
Worthier cause for passion wild
If I had not taken the child.

And deemest thou as those who pore,
With aged eyes, short way before,
Think'st Beauty vanished from the coast
Of matter, and thy darling lost?
Taught he not thee - the man of eld,
Whose eyes within his eyes beheld
Heaven's numerous hierarchy span
The mystic gulf from God to man?
To be alone wilt thou begin

When worlds of lovers hem thee in?
To-morrow, when the masks shall fall
That dizen Nature's carnival,

The pure shall see by their own will,
Which overflowing Love shall fill,
'Tis not within the force of fate
The fate-conjoined to separate.
But thou, my votary, weepest thou?
I gave thee sight - where is it now?
I taught thy heart beyond the reach
Of ritual, bible, or of speech;
Wrote in thy mind's transparent table,
As far as the incommunicable;

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Taught thee each private sign to raise
Lit by the supersolar blaze.
Past utterance, and past belief,
And past the blasphemy of grief,
The mysteries of Nature's heart;
And though no Muse can these impart,
Throb thine with Nature's throbbing breast,
And all is clear from east to west.

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'I came to thee as to a friend;
Dearest, to thee I did not send
Tutors, but a joyful eye,
Innocence that matched the sky,
Lovely locks, a form of wonder,
Laughter rich as woodland thunder,
That thou might'st entertain apart
The richest flowering of all art:
And, as the great all-loving Day
Through smallest chambers takes its way,
That thou might'st break thy daily bread
With prophet, savior and head;

That thou might'st cherish for thine own
The riches of sweet Mary's Son,
Boy-Rabbi, Israel's paragon.
And thoughtest thou such guest
Would in thy hall take up his rest?
Would rushing life forget her laws,
Fate's glowing revolution pause?
High omens ask diviner guess;
Not to be conned to tediousness.
And know my higher gifts unbind
The zone that girds the incarnate mind.
When the scanty shores are full

With Thought's perilous, whirling pool;
When frail Nature can no more,
Then the Spirit strikes the hour:
My servant Death, with solving rite,
Pours finite into infinite.

Wilt thou freeze love's tidal flow,

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Whose streams through Nature circling go?
Nail the wild star to its track

On the half-climbed zodiac ?
Light is light which radiates,
Blood is blood which circulates,
Life is life which generates,
And many-seeming life is one,
Wilt thou transfix and make it none?
Its onward force too starkly pent
In figure, bone and lineament?
Wilt thou, uncalled, interrogate,
Talker! the unreplying Fate?
Nor see the genius of the whole
Ascendant in the private soul,
Beckon it when to go and come,
Self-announced its hour of doom?

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Fair the soul's recess and shrine,

Magic-built to last a season; Masterpiece of love benign, Fairer that expansive reason Whose omen 't is, and sign.

Wilt thou not ope thy heart to know

What rainbows teach, and sunsets show? Verdict which accumulates

From lengthening scroll of human fates, Voice of earth to earth returned, Prayers of saints that inly burned, Saying, What is excellent,

As God lives, is permanent;

Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain ;
Heart's love will meet thee again.
Revere the Maker; fetch thine eye

Up to his style, and manners of the sky.
Not of adamant and gold

Built he heaven stark and cold;
No, but a nest of bending reeds,
Flowering grass and scented weeds;
Or like a traveller's fleeing tent,
Or bow above the tempest bent;
Built of tears and sacred flames,
And virtue reaching to its aims;
Built of furtherance and pursuing,
Not of spent deeds, but of doing.
Silent rushes the swift Lord
Through ruined systems still restored,
Broadsowing, bleak and void to bless,
Plants with worlds the wilderness;
Waters with tears of ancient sorrow
Apples of Eden ripe to-morrow.
House and tenant go to ground,

Lost in God, in Godhead found.'

TO J. W.1

SET not thy foot on graves;

Hear what wine and roses say;

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1846.

The mountain chase, the summer waves, The crowded town, thy feet may well de

lay.

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

1 To John Weiss, who had written a severe judgment of Coleridge.

2 The circumstance which gave rise to this poem, though not known, can easily be inferred. Rev. William Henry Channing, nephew of the great Unitarian divine, a man most tender in his sympathies, with an apostle's zeal for right, had, no doubt, been urging his friend to join the brave band of men who were dedicating their lives to the destruction of human slavery in the United States. To these men Mr. Emerson gave honor and sympathy and active aid by word and presence on important occasions. He showed his colors from the first, and spoke fearlessly on the subject in his lectures, but his method was the reverse of theirs, affirmative not negative; he knew his office and followed his genius. He said, I have quite other slaves to free than those negroes, to wit, imprisoned spirits, imprisoned thoughts.' (E. W. EMERSON.)