IV Manners
“How near to good is what is fair! Which we no sooner see, But with the lines and outward air Our senses taken be. Again yourselves compose, And now put all the aptness on Of Figure, that Proportion Or Color…
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
III Character
The sun set; but set not his hope: Stars rose; his faith was earlier up: Fixed on the enormous galaxy, Deeper and older seemed his eye: And matched his sufferance sublime The taciturnity of time. He spoke, and words more…
II Experience
The lords of life, the lords of life,— I saw them pass, In their own guise, Like and unlike, Portly and grim, Use and Surprise, Surface and Dream, Succession swift, and spectral Wrong, Temperament without a tongue, And the inventor…
XII. Art
Give to barrows, trays, and pans Grace and glimmer of romance; Bring the moonlight into noon Hid in gleaming piles of stone; On the city’s paved street Plant gardens lined with lilac sweet; Let spouting fountains cool the air, Singing…
XI. Intellect
Go, speed the stars of Thought On to their shining goals; — The sower scatters broad his seed, The wheat thou strew’st be souls. ESSAY XI Intellect Every substance is negatively electric to that which stands above it in the…
X Circles
Nature centres into balls, And her proud ephemerals, Fast to surface and outside, Scan the profile of the sphere; Knew they what that signified, A new genesis were here. ESSAY X Â Circles The eye is the first circle; the horizon…
IX The Over-Soul
"But souls that of his own good life partake, He loves as his own self; dear as his eye They are to Him: He’ll never them forsake: When they shall die, then God himself shall die: They live, they live…
VIII Heroism
“Paradise is under the shadow of swords.” Mahomet Ruby wine is drunk by knaves, Sugar spends to fatten slaves, Rose and vine-leaf deck buffoons; Thunderclouds are Jove’s festoons, Drooping oft in wreaths of dread Lightning-knotted round his head; The hero…
VII Prudence
Theme no poet gladly sung, Fair to old and foul to young, Scorn not thou the love of parts, And the articles of arts. Grandeur of the perfect sphere Thanks the atoms that cohere. ESSAY VII Prudence What right have…
VI Friendship
A ruddy drop of manly blood The surging sea outweighs, The world uncertain comes and goes, The lover rooted stays. I fancied he was fled, And, after many a year, Glowed unexhausted kindliness Like daily sunrise there. My careful heart…