"Liberty!" Is that the cry, then?
    We have heard it oft of yore.
Once it had, we think, a meaning;
    Let us hear it now no more.

We have read what history tells us
    Of its heroes, martyrs too.
Doubtless they were very splendid,
    But they're not for me and you.

There were Greeks who fought and perished,
    Won from Persians deathless graves.
Had we lived then, we're aware that
    We'd have been those same Greeks' slaves!

Then a Roman came who loved us;
    Caesar gave men tongues and swords.
Crying "Liberty," they fought him,
    Cato and his cut-throat lords.

When he'd give a broader franchise,
    Lift the mangled nations bowed,
Crying "Liberty!" they killed him,
    Brutus and his pandar crowd.
...

I am not poor, but I am proud,
Of one inalienable right,
Above the envy of the crowd,--
Thought's holy light.

Better it is than gems or gold,
And oh! it cannot die,
But thought will glow when the sun grows cold,
And mix with Deity.

BOSTON, 1823.

To make a fairer,
A kinder, a more constant world than this;
To make time longer
And love a little stronger,

To give to blossoms
And trees and fruits more beauty than they bear,
Adding to sweetness
The aye-wanted completeness,

To say to sorrow,
"Ease now thy bosom of its snaky burden";
(And sorrow brightened,
No more stung and frightened),

To cry to death,
"Stay a little, O proud Shade, thy stony hand";
(And death removing
Left us amazed loving);--

For this and this,
O inward Spirit, arm thyself with power;
Be it thy duty
To give a body to beauty.

Thine to remake
The world in thy hid likeness, and renew
The fading vision
In spite of time's derision.

Be it thine, O spirit,
The worl...

Proudly, beneath her glittering dome,
Our three-hilled city greets the morn;
Here Freedom found her virgin home, -
The Bethlehem where her babe was born.

The lordly roofs of traffic rise
Amid the smoke of household fires;
High o'er them in the peaceful skies
Faith points to heaven her clustering spires.

Can Freedom breathe if ignorance reign?
Shall Commerce thrive where anarchs rule?
Will Faith her half-fledged brood retain
If darkening counsels cloud the school?

Let in the light! from every age
Some gleams of garnered wisdom pour,
And, fixed on thought's electric page,
Wait all their radiance to restore.

Let in the light! in diamond mines
Their gems invite the hand that delves;
So learning's treasured jewels shine
Ranged...

Go forth to the Mount; bring the olive-branch home,[1]
And rejoice; for the day of our    freedom is come!
From that time,[2] when the moon upon Ajalon's vale,
    Looking motionless down,[3] saw the kings of the earth,
In the presence of God's mighty champion grow pale--
    Oh, never had Judah an hour of such mirth!
Go forth to the Mount--bring the olive-branch home,
And rejoice, for the day of our freedom is come!

Bring myrtle and palm--bring the boughs of each tree
That's worthy to wave o'er the tents of the Free.[4]
From that day when the footsteps of Israel shone
    With a light not their own, thro' the Jordan's deep tide,
Whose waters shrunk back as the ark glided on[5]--
    Oh, never had Judah an hour of ...

Not unto us who did but seek
The word that burned within to speak,
Not unto us this day belong
The triumph and exultant song.
Upon us fell in early youth
The burden of unwelcome truth,
And left us, weak and frail and few,
The censor's painful work to do.
Thenceforth our life a fight became,
The air we breathed was hot with blame;
For not with gauged and softened tone
We made the bondman's cause our own.
We bore, as Freedom's hope forlorn,
The private hate, the public scorn;
Yet held through all the paths we trod
Our faith in man and trust in God.
We prayed and hoped; but still, with awe,
The coming of the sword we saw;
We heard the nearing steps of doom,
We saw the shade of things to come.
In grief which they alone can feel
Who from a ...

What though the Accused, upon his own appeal
To righteous Gods when man has ceased to feel,
Or at a doubting Judge's stern command,
Before the Stone of Power no longer stand
To take his sentence from the balanced Block,
As, at his touch, it rocks, or seems to rock;
Though, in the depths of sunless groves, no more
The Druid-priest the hallowed Oak adore;
Yet, for the Initiate, rocks and whispering trees
Do still perform mysterious offices!
And functions dwell in beast and bird that sway
The reasoning mind, or with the fancy play,
Inviting, at all seasons, ears and eyes
To watch for undelusive auguries:
Not uninspired appear their simplest ways;
Their voices mount symbolical of praise
To mix with hymns that Spirits make and hear;
And to fallen man their inn...

("Là-haut, qui sourit.")

[Bk. VII. vii., September, 1853.]


Who smiles there? Is it
A stray spirit,
Or woman fair?
Sombre yet soft the brow!
Bow, nations, bow;
O soul in air,
Speak - what art thou?

In grief the fair face seems -
What means those sudden gleams?
Our antique pride from dreams
Starts up, and beams
Its conquering glance, -
To make our sad hearts dance,
And wake in woods hushed long
The wild bird's song.
Angel of Day!
Our Hope, Love, Stay,
Thy countenance
Lights land and sea
Eternally,
Thy name is France
Or Verity.

Fair angel in thy glass
When vile things move or pass,
Clouds in the skies amass;
Terrible, alas!
Thy stern commands are then:
"Form your...

Spirit of Liberty,
Wake in the Land!
Sons of our Forefathers,
Raise the strong hand!
Burn in each heart anew
Liberty's fires;
Wave the old Flag again,
Flag of our sires;
Glow all thy stars again,
Banner of Light!
Wave o'er us forever,
Emblem of might;
God for our Banner!
God for the Right!

Minions of Tyranny,
Tremble and kneel!
The sons of the Pilgrims
Are sharpening their steel.
Pledge for our Land again
Honor and life;
Wave the old Flag again;
On to the strife!
Shades of our Forefathers,
Witness our fright!
Wave o'er us forever,
Emblem of might;
God for our Banner!
God for our Right!

What though around thee blazes
No fiery rallying sign?
From all thy own high places,
Give heaven the light of thine!
What though unthrilled, unmoving,
The statesman stand apart,
And comes no warm approving
From Mammon's crowded mart?
Still, let the land be shaken
By a summons of thine own!
By all save truth forsaken,
Stand fast with that alone!
Shrink not from strife unequal!
With the best is always hope;
And ever in the sequel
God holds the right side up!
But when, with thine uniting,
Come voices long and loud,
And far-off hills are writing
Thy fire-words on the cloud;
When from Penobscot's fountains
A deep response is heard,
And across the Western mountains
Rolls back thy rallying word;
Shall thy line of battle falter,...

Of Public Opinion;
Of a calm and cool fiat, sooner or later, (How impassive! How certain and final!)
Of the President with pale face, asking secretly to himself, What will the people say at last?
Of the frivolous Judge—Of the corrupt Congressman, Governor, Mayor—Of such as these, standing helpless and exposed;
Of the mumbling and screaming priest—(soon, soon deserted;)
Of the lessening, year by year, of venerableness, and of the dicta of officers, statutes, pulpits, schools;
Of the rising forever taller and stronger and broader, of the intuitions of men and women, and of self-esteem, and of personality;
Of the New World—Of the Democracies, resplendent, en-masse;
Of the conformity of politics, armies, navies, to them and to me,
Of the shining sun by them—Of the inherent light, greater than the r...

Sunrise In The Place De La Concorde. (Paris, August 1865.)



I stand at the break of day
In the Champs Elysees.
The tremulous shafts of dawning,
As they shoot o'er the Tuileries early,
Strike Luxor's cold grey spire,
And wild in the light of the morning
With their marble manes on fire,
Ramp the white Horses of Marly.

But the Place of Concord lies
Dead hushed 'neath the ashy skies.
And the Cities sit in council
With sleep in their wide stone eyes.
I see the mystic plain
Where the army of spectres slain
In the Emperor's life-long war
March on with unsounding tread
To trumpets whose voice is dead.
Their spectral chief still leads them, -
The ghostly flash of his sword
Like a comet through mist shines far, -
An...

No longer of Him be it said
"He hath no place to lay His head."

In every land a constant lamp
Flames by His small and mighty camp.

There is no strange and distant place
That is not gladdened by His face.

And every nation kneels to hail
The Splendour shining through Its veil.

Cloistered beside the shouting street,
Silent, He calls me to His feet.

Imprisoned for His love of me
He makes my spirit greatly free.

And through my lips that uttered sin
The King of Glory enters in.

Henceforth, please God, forever I forego
The yoke of men's opinions. I will be
Light-hearted as a bird, and live with God.
I find him in the bottom of my heart,
I hear continually his voice therein.

Behavior--fresh, native, copious, each one for himself or herself,
Nature and the Soul expressed--America and freedom expressed--In it the finest art,
In it pride, cleanliness, sympathy, to have their chance,
In it physique, intellect, faith--in it just as much as to manage an army or a city, or to write a book--perhaps more,
The youth, the laboring person, the poor person, rivalling all the rest--perhaps outdoing the rest,
The effects of the universe no greater than its;
For there is nothing in the whole universe that can be more effective
than a man's or woman's daily behavior can be,
In any position, in any one of These States.

(Paris, August, 1865.)


I stand at the break of day
In the Champs Elysées.
The tremulous shafts of dawning
As they shoot o'er the Tuileries early,
Strike Luxor's cold gray spire,
And wild in the light of the morning
With their marble manes on fire,
Ramp the white Horses of Marly.

But the Place of Concord lies
Dead hushed 'neath the ashy skies.
And the Cities sit in council
With sleep in their wide stone eyes.
I see the mystic plain
Where the army of spectres slain
In the Emperor's life-long war
March on with unsounding tread
To trumpets whose voice is dead.
Their spectral chief still leads them, -
The ghostly flash of his sword
Like a comet through mist shines far, -
And the noiseless host is poured,
For th...

Men! if manhood still ye claim,
If the Northern pulse can thrill,
Roused by wrong or stung by shame,
Freely, strongly still;
Let the sounds of traffic die:
Shut the mill-gate, leave the stall,
Fling the axe and hammer by;
Throng to Faneuil Hall!
Wrongs which freemen never brooked,
Dangers grim and fierce as they,
Which, like couching lions, looked
On your fathers' way;
These your instant zeal demand,
Shaking with their earthquake-call
Every rood of Pilgrim land,
Ho, to Faneuil Hall!
From your capes and sandy bars,
From your mountain-ridges cold,
Through whose pines the westering stars
Stoop their crowns of gold;
Come, and with your footsteps wake
Echoes from that holy wall;
Once again, for Freedom's sake,
Rock your fathers' h...

"Great peace in Europe! Order reigns
From Tiber's hills to Danube's plains!"
So say her kings and priests; so say
The lying prophets of our day.
Go lay to earth a listening ear;
The tramp of measured marches hear;
The rolling of the cannon's wheel,
The shotted musket's murderous peal,
The night alarm, the sentry's call,
The quick-eared spy in hut and hall!
From Polar sea and tropic fen
The dying-groans of exiled men!
The bolted cell, the galley's chains,
The scaffold smoking with its stains!
Order, the hush of brooding slaves!
Peace, in the dungeon-vaults and graves!
O Fisher! of the world-wide net,
With meshes in all waters set,
Whose fabled keys of heaven and hell
Bolt hard the patriot's prison-cell,
And open wide the banquet-hall,
W...