Two Rivers
Thy summer voice,
Musketaquit,
Repeats the music of the rain;
But sweeter rivers pulsing flit Through thee, as thou through the Concord Plain.
Thou in thy narrow banks art pent:
The stream I love unbounded goes Through flood and sea and firmament;
Through light, through life, it forward flows.
I see the inundation sweet,
I hear the spending of the steam Through years, through men, through Nature fleet,
Through love and thought, through power and dream.
Musketaquit, a goblin strong,
Of shard and flint makes jewels gay;
They lose their grief who hear his song,
And where he winds is the day of day.
So forth and brighter fares my stream,—Who drink it shall not thirst again;
No darkness taints its equal gleam,
And ages drop in it like rain.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Other author posts
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
Forebearance
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun; Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk; At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse; Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust;
Initial Love
Venus, when her son was lost, Cried him up and down the coast, In hamlets, palaces, and parks, And told the truant by his marks,
Etienne de la Boéce
I serve you not, if you I follow, Shadow-like, o'er hill and hollow, And bend my fancy to your leading, All too nimble for my treading