Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, S.R., by RALPH WALDO EMERSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

S.R., by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Demure apothecary
Last Line: Fill with new hopes, & shake with grand desire?
Subject(s): Philosophy & Philosophers; Reed, Sampson (1800-1880)


Demure apothecary
Whose early reverend genius my young eye
With wonder followed, & undoubting joy,
Believing in that cold & modest form

Brooded alway the everlasting mind.
And that thou faithful didst obey the soul,
So should the splendid favour of the God
From thine observed lips shower words of fire,
Pictures that cast before the common eye,
I know for mine, & all men know for theirs.
How is the fine gold dim! the lofty low!
And thou, reputed speaker for the soul,
Forgoest the matchless benefit, & now,
Sleek deacon of the New Jerusalem,

Thou hast defied the offering world to be
A blind man's blind man.
Was it not worth ambition
To be the bard of nature to these times
With words like things,

An universal speech that did present
All natural creatures, and the eye beheld
A lake, a rose tree, when he named their names?

And better was it to cower before the phantoms
One self deceiving mystic drew in swarms
Wherever rolled his visionary eye,
The Swedish Pluto of a world of ghosts,
Eyes without light, men without character,
Nature a cave of theologions? --

And lo! the young men of the land
Decline the strife of virtue, fail to be
The bringers of glad thought, preferring Ease
Ease & irresolution & the wine
Of placid rich men, they consent to be
Danglers & dolls. With these, not thou, not thou,
O noblest youth, not thou wilt there remain!
Up! for thy life, & for thy people's life!
And be the sun's light & the rainbow's glow,
And by the power of picture, to the eye
Show wherefore it was made. Unlock
The world of sound to the astonished ear,
And thus by thee shall man be twice a man.
Were it not better than to boast thyself
Father of fifty sons, flesh of thy flesh,
Rather to live earth's better bachelor
Planting ethereal seed in souls,
Spreading abroad thy being in the being
Of men whom thou dost foster & inform,
Fill with new hopes, & shake with grand desire?





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