THE PROBLEM Or how the sacred pine-tree adds O'er England's abbeys bends the sky, These temples grew as grows the grass; To the vast soul that o'er him planned; Ever the fiery Pentecost Girds with one flame the countless host, 25 One accent of the Holy Ghost Ralph Waldo Emerson. BRAHMA If the red slayer think he slays, Far or forgot to me is near; Shadow and sunlight are the same; They reckon ill who leave me out; And I the hymn the Brahmin sings. TERMINUS The strong gods pine for my abode, 27 Find me, and turn thy back on heaven. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root. Fancy departs: no more invent; Contract thy firmament To compass of a tent. There's not enough for this and that, Make thy option which of two; Economize the failing river, Not the less revere the Giver, Leave the many and hold the few. Still plan and smile, And, fault of novel germs, Who, when they gave thee breath, The needful sinew stark as once, As the bird trims her to the gale, Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime: "Lowly faithful, banish fear, Right onward drive unharmed; The port, well worth the cruise, is near, And every wave is charmed.” Ralph Waldo Emerson. MONTEREY WE were not many we who stood Before the iron sleet that day Yet many a gallant spirit would Give half his years if he then could Now here, now there, the shot, it hailed In deadly drifts of fiery spray, Yet not a single soldier quailed When wounded comrades round them wailed Their dying shout at Monterey. DIVINA COMMEDIA And on · still on our column kept Through walls of flame its withering way; Where fell the dead, the living stept, Still charging on the guns which swept The slippery streets of Monterey. The foe himself recoiled aghast, When, striking where he strongest lay, We swooped his flanking batteries past, And braving full their murderous blast, Stormed home the towers of Monterey. Our banners on those turrets wave, And there our evening bugles play; Where orange boughs above their grave Keep green the memory of the brave Who fought and fell at Monterey. We We are not many we who pressed 29 Charles Fenno Hoffman. DIVINA COMMEDIA OFT have I seen at some cathedral door Far off the noises of the world retreat; Become an indistinguishable roar. |