Xenophanes

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Painting and Sculpture
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The Problem
The Rhodora
Saadi
The Snow-Storm
Sphynx
"Sursum Corda"
"Suum Cuique"
Tact
Threnody
To Ellen, At the South
To Eva
To J.W.
To Rhea
Uriel
The Visit
Wood Notes I
Wood Notes II
The World-Soul
Xenophanes

Texts : Early Emerson Poems : Emerson Poems: P-Z : XENOPHANES

Xenophanes

By fate, not option, frugal nature gave
One scent to hyson and to wallflower,
One sound to pine-groves and to water-falls,
One aspect to the desert and the lake,
It was her stern necessity. All things
Are of one pattern made; bird, beast, and plant,
Song, picture, form, space, thought, and character,
Deceive us, seeming to be many things,
And are but one. Beheld far off, they part
As God and Devil; bring them to the mind,
They dull its edge with their monotony.
To know the old element explore a new,
And in the second reappears the first.
The specious panorama of a year
But multiplies the image of a day,
A belt of mirrors round a taper's flame,
And universal nature through her vast
And crowded whole, an infinite paroquet,
Repeats one cricket note.

from: Emerson, Ralph Waldo.  Early Poems of Ralph Waldo Emerson. New York, Boston, Thomas Y. Crowell & Company: 1899. Introduction by Nathan Haskell Dole. 

[ Home ] [ Up ] [ Painting and Sculpture ] [ The Park ] [ The Problem ] [ The Rhodora ] [ Saadi ] [ The Snow-Storm ] [ Sphynx ] [ "Sursum Corda" ] [ "Suum Cuique" ] [ Tact ] [ Threnody ] [ To Ellen, At the South ] [ To Eva ] [ To J.W. ] [ To Rhea ] [ Uriel ] [ The Visit ] [ Wood Notes I ] [ Wood Notes II ] [ The World-Soul ] [ Xenophanes ] [ Emerson Poems: A-C ] [ Emerson Poems: D-G ] [ Emerson Poems: H-O ] [ Emerson Poems: P-Z ]