Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Source of book: I own this.

I am not entirely sure what percentage of Emerson’s poems are in this volume - it is one of those Black’s Readers Service Company hardbacks with selected works, in any case. 

Emerson is better known for his prose these days, particularly essays like “Self Reliance,” which most American kids read in 11th grade. I figured I would read the poetry, and get an idea about what it was like. 

 Emerson in 1857

I would say that my impression, like that of Emerson in general, is mixed. There are a few gems in the collection, but also too many long poems in iambic tetrameter with rhymed couplets, that seem to go on and on without going much of anywhere. I was not expecting to miss blank verse that much - when he finally did write one in that format, it just felt like it flowed so much better. 

Also an issue in the poetry, like his prose, are Emerson’s really dated views on race. On the one hand, he was an abolitionist from the 1840s on (although he didn’t want that to be the only thing people associated him with), and had - for his time - a progressive vision of integration and intermarriage. But he also was a Saxon chauvinist, like many other Americans of British descent, who considered the “Anglo-Saxon race” to be superior to all others. Not merely in the sense of whiteness: Saxons were superior to the French, to the Irish, to the Italians, and every other immigrant group of the time. This led to a number of really wince-worthy lines in otherwise inspiring poems. 

I do want to be fair to Emerson on this, though. His views were common enough, although that is not a defense. Where I think it is easy to condemn him unfairly is to miss what his actual proposals meant. Whatever his beliefs about superiority, he advocated for true equality and, shockingly for his time, true integration. He may have believed the Irish and African Americans were inferior races, but he also believed they should live side by side with everyone, have the same opportunities, freedoms, and rights, and believed that inevitably, they would all intermarry and create a truly superior race: the American. Even today, there is something futuristic about the idea of intermarriage to the degree. For White Nationalists, this is horrifying. For a lot of us in California, we already see it - interracial marriage here is the norm, not an exception. 

So, I guess those are the two downsides: dated views, and dated poetic forms. But there is good too. Emerson may never reach the heights of the best nature poets (Wordsworth and Frost particularly), but one can see his influence on 20th Century American poetry. His writing on nature seems more about being inspired by nature than closely observing it. You won’t find the close lens turned on the details, just the grand vistas. There is also plenty of transcendental philosophy in the poems too. At this point in history and in my own journey, transcendentalism seems like part of normal culture, at least among conservationists. It isn’t nearly the shocking departure from orthodox religion it seemed at the time - it’s nowhere near New Age or other 20th Century movements. In some ways, it feels more like just another step in the long chain of mystics who find God in nature, not just in a church. 

Speaking of that, I liked this poem, one of his earliest, from 1838:

The Problem

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 Shakespeare 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.

Another one I loved was this one. Nobody knows who “J. W.” was, although there are several possibilities. Of all the carpe diem poems I have read, this one is definitely a favorite. 

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 buried;

Go get them where he earned them when alive,

As resolutely dig or dive.

Life is too short to waste

The critic bite or cynic bark,

Quarrel, or reprimand;

'Twill soon be dark;

Up! mind thine own aim, and

God speed the mark.

   

Another one that struck me was this thoughtful short poem. Although not unique to America, we seem to worship riches - and the wealthy. The glamorous and the beautiful. Meanwhile, this wealth and beauty dulls their consciences. Emerson seems, to me, caught between his own sense of inferiority and a weird wonder at these bright creatures. 

The Park

THE PROSPEROUS and beautiful   

To me seem not to wear 

The yoke of conscience masterful,   

Which galls me everywhere.   

I cannot shake off the god;       

On my neck he makes his seat; 

I look at my face in the glass,—   

My eyes his eyeballs meet.   

Enchanters! Enchantresses!   

Your gold makes you seem wise;      

The morning mist within your grounds   

More proudly rolls, more softly lies.   

Yet spake yon purple mountain,   

Yet said yon ancient wood, 

That Night or Day, that Love or Crime,    

Leads all souls to the Good.

This little nature poem is also a nice defense of introversion. 

The Apology       

   

Think me not unkind and rude,

That I walk alone in grove and glen;

I go to the god of the wood

To fetch his word to men.

Tax not my sloth that I

Fold my arms beside the brook;

Each cloud that floated in the sky

Writes a letter in my book.

Chide me not, laborious band,

For the idle flowers I brought;

Every aster in my hand

Goes home loaded with a thought.

There was never mystery,

But 'tis figured in the flowers,

Was never secret history,

But birds tell it in the bowers.

One harvest from thy field

Homeward brought the oxen strong;

A second crop thine acres yield,

Which I gather in a song.

Also a great introvert poem is this one, rather insightful about how brains like his and mine work, with the thoughts drifting and swirling, and needing time to sort out and organize. This one is probably my favorite poem of his. 

My Thoughts

Many are the thoughts that come to me

In my lonely musing;

And they drift so strange and swift,

There's no time for choosing

Which to follow, for to leave

Any, seems a losing.

When they come, they come in flocks,

As on glancing feather,

Startled birds rise one by one

In autumnal weather,

Waking one another up

From the sheltering heather.

Some so merry that I laugh,

Some are grave and serious,

Some so trite, their least approach

Is enough to weary us:—

Others flit like midnight ghosts,

Shrouded and mysterious.

There are thoughts that o'er me steal,

Like the day when dawning;

Great thoughts winged with melody

Common utterance scorning,

Moving in an inward tune,

And an inward morning.

Some have dark and drooping wings,

Children all of sorrow;

Some are as gay, as if today

Could see no cloudy morrow,—

And yet, like light and shade, they each

Must from the other borrow.

One by one they come to me

On their destined mission;

One by one I see them fade

With no hopeless vision;

For they've led me on a step

To their home Elysian.

I also found this poem, used at the dedication of the monument at Concord - the first shots of the American Revolution - to be rather good. Plenty of occasional poems age poorly, or are turgid to begin with. This one is simplicity - and focus. 

Concord Hymn

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

   Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmers stood

   And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;

   Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;

And Time the ruined bridge has swept

   Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,

   We set today a votive stone;

That memory may their deed redeem,

   When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare

   To die, and leave their children free,

Bid Time and Nature gently spare

   The shaft we raise to them and thee.

There are a couple of longer poems that I enjoyed, but really are too long to quote entire. The first is “Blight,” an indictment against profit-driven destruction of nature that seems relevant today. Here is the opening:

Give me truths,

For I am weary of the surfaces,

And die of inanition.

And later:

But these young scholars who invade our hills,

Bold as the engineer who fells the wood,

And travelling often in the cut he makes,

Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not,

And all their botany is Latin names.

The ending is pretty bitter:

And life, shorn of its venerable length,

Even at its greatest space, is a defeat,

And dies in anger that it was a dupe,

And, in its highest noon and wantonness,

Is early frugal like a beggar's child:

With most unhandsome calculation taught,

Even in the hot pursuit of the best aims

And prizes of ambition, checks its hand,

Like Alpine cataracts, frozen as they leaped,

Chilled with a miserly comparison

Of the toy's purchase with the length of life.

Much more hopeful is “Boston Hymn,” which is a celebration of the best of the aspirational America - the one at perpetual war with the worst of America. In the midst of the Civil War, Emerson expressed his hope that “All men are created equal” would become a reality, and that freedom would be a blessing to all. Here are a few stanzas that I thought were best. (You can read the whole poem here, although a few stanzas from my book are missing.) 

God said,—I am tired of kings,

I suffer them no more;

Up to my ear the morning brings

The outrage of the poor.

Think ye I made this ball

A field of havoc and war,

Where tyrants great and tyrants small

Might harry the weak and poor?

I will divide my goods,

Call in the wretch and slave:

None shall rule but the humble,

And none but Toil shall have.

I will have never a noble,

No lineage counted great:

Fishers and choppers and ploughmen

Shall constitute a State.

I break your bonds and masterships,

And I unchain the slave:

Free be his heart and hand henceforth,

As wind and wandering wave.

To-day unbind the captive,

So only are ye unbound;

Lift up a people from the dust,

Trump of their rescue, sound!

Pay ransom to the owner,

And fill the bag to the brim.

Who is the owner? The slave is owner,

And ever was. Pay him.

I mean, dang, there are some revolutionary ideas there. We STILL can’t have a rational conversation in this country about restitution for slavery. It seems fundamental: whites built America using the stolen labor and freedom of African Americans. And have worked ever since to make America serve whites at everyone else’s expense - even today. Any meaningful form of repentance needs to include restitution. This is an inspiring poem any way you slice it. 

So, that is my impression of Emerson. A few really good ones. Some tedious stuff. A man who was, like all of us, a mixture of good and bad, but one who I think did in good faith try to make the world a better place for all.