Time-and-space-conquering steam,And the light-outspeeding telegraph Bears nothing on its beam.

The politics are base;

The letters do not cheer:
And 'tis far in the deeps of history,
The voice that speaketh clear.
Trade and the street ensnare us,

Our bodies are weak and worn;
We plot and corrupt each other,
And we despoil the unborn.

Yet there in the parlor sits

Some figure of noble guise,Our angel, in a stranger's form, Or woman's pleading eyes;

5

10

15

20

25

The crimson morning flames into
The fopperies of the town.
Within, without the idle earth,
Stars weave eternal rings;
The sun himself shines heartily,
And shares the joy he brings.

And what if Trade sow cities

Like shells along the shore,
And thatch with towns the prairie broad
With railways ironed o'er? -—
They are but sailing foam-bells

Along Thought's causing stream, And take their shape and sun-color From him that sends the dream.

For Destiny does not like

To yield to men the helm;
And shoots his thought by hidden nerves
Throughout the solid realm.

The patient Dæmon sits,
With roses and a shroud;
He has his way, and deals his gifts,-
But ours is not allowed.

60

65

70

75

80

85

Spring still makes spring in the mind
When sixty years are told;
Love wakes anew this throbbing heart,
And we are never old.
Over the winter glaciers

I see the summer glow,
And through the wild-piled snowdrift,
The warm rosebuds below.

90

95

100

105

110

NOTES.

The one thing attempted in the editorial portions of this little book is to make these parts of service to the pupils who will read it. It has, therefore, seemed better to suggest a search, perhaps even too close, for the poet's literal meaning, rather than to risk leaving an impression of something beautiful, but vague. For facts concerning Emerson's life and for quotations from his journal, the editor is under obligations as every student of Emerson must be- to E. W. Emerson's Emerson in Concord, J. E. Cabot's Memoir of Emerson, and O. W. Holmes's Ralph Waldo Emerson.

COMPENSATION.

11. A by-word and a hissing: Emerson was once hissed at a political meeting in Cambridgeport. A friend who was present said one "could think of nothing but dogs baying at the moon. He was

serene as moonlight itself."

12. Res

administrari: translated in the preceding sentence. Primeval despots of Egypt: the Hyksos, or shepherd kings. The journey of Abraham to Egypt (Genesis xii. 10) is assigned to the early part of their reign, and that of Joseph (Genesis xxxvii. 28) to the closing period of their power.

15. It is in the world, etc.: cf. John i. 10. Οἱ translated in the following sentence.

εὐπίπτουσι:

17. The ingenuity of man, etc.: cf. the address to the "backstairs" in Kingsley's Water-Babies, Chapter VIII.

19. Drive out nature with a fork: this saying is at least two thousand years old. See Horace's Epistolæ, I. 10. 24, "Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret." The irreverent modern American illustration of the thought is the story of Mrs. Partington's trying to sweep back the Atlantic with her broom.

109

20. How secret art thou, etc.: Confessions of St. Augustine (fourth century), Book I. 18.