Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

COSMOS by RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Poem Explanation Poet Analysis

First Line: WHO SAW THE HID BEGINNINGS
Last Line: ON ITS OWN FIRST OF MAY.
Who saw the hid beginnings
When Chaos & Order strove?
Or who can date the morning prime
And purple flame of love?

I saw the hid beginnings
When Chaos & Order strove,
And I can date the morning prime
And purple flame of Love.

Song breather from all the forest,
The total air was fame;
It seemed the world was all torches
That suddenly caught the flame.

Is there never a retroscope mirror
In the realms & corners of space,
That can give us a glimpse of the battle
And the soldiers face to face?

Sit here on the basalt ranges,
Where twisted hills betray
The feet of the world-old Forces
Who wrestled here on a day.

When the purple flame shoots up,
And Love ascends his throne,
I cannot hear your songs, o birds,
For the witchery of my own.

And every human heart
Still keeps that golden day,
And rings the bells of jubilee
On its own First of May.



Home: PoetryExplorer.net