Classic and Contemporary Poetry
PROTEUS, by RALPH WALDO EMERSON Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Poet bred in saadi's school Last Line: Of dust of abasement. | ||||||||
Poet bred in Saadi's school Can wind the world off any spool, Knows the lore of more & less. Brahma stooped from the sky & made the sun of the slime. He made, of a toad, an archangel, Of bats & bugs, a god as well, If he should wash your eyes with rue, You would remember How hated were the forms you clasp, And that once you adored the mummies, Trust nothing that you see It changes while you look Do not think him a dunce Who wore bells & foolscap once He is the teacher of ages For there is no wise man Men are vascular only, Constructive men only, Pipes or channels, clay or crystal Thro' them rolls the stream today To roll tomorrow otherwheres And leave these dry & mean As high as thy perception goes, Thou canst not overpraise the great Yet grander heroes shine beyond. We tread the ladder's lowest round And before the Deity Thy gods are pismires Flow flow the waves hated Accursed adored! The waves of mutation; No anchorage is. Sleep is not, death is not, Who seem to die, live. House you were born in Friends of your youth Old man & young maid Early toil & its gains They are all vanishing Fleeing to fables Cannot be moored See the stars through them, The treacherous marbles Know, the stars yonder The stars everlasting Are fugitive also And emulate, vaulted, The passing heat-lightning or fireflys flight When thou dost return On the wave's circulation Beholding the shimmer The wild dissipation, And out of endeavor To change & to flow, The gas become solid And phantasms & nothings Return to be things And endless imbroglio Is law & the world, Then first shalt thou know That in the wild turmoil Horsed on the Proteus Only canst thou ride to power. And to Endurance. Much thou must suffer Be shocked & derided Lose faith to gain faith, Ah worse! must I say it? Lose thy virtue, lose thy soul, To gain the incorruptible. The scale in this world Of greatness & height Is reversed in the other. Crown of power, is fashioned Of dust of abasement. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BOSTON HYMN; READ IN MUSIC HALL, JANUARY 1, 1863 by RALPH WALDO EMERSON CONCORD HYMN; SUNG AT COMPLETION OF CONCORD MONUMENT, 1836 by RALPH WALDO EMERSON DIRGE (1) by RALPH WALDO EMERSON EACH AND [OR, IN] ALL by RALPH WALDO EMERSON EROS (1) by RALPH WALDO EMERSON FABLE: THE MOUNTAIN AND THE SQUIRREL by RALPH WALDO EMERSON |
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