Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902.

May 25

Emerson

By Craven Langstroth Betts (1853–1941)

Ralph Waldo Emerson was born on May 25, 1803.

VOICE of the deeps thou art! But not the wild,

Ungoverned mouthing of the wind-lashed waves;

Nor yet the dirge of billows over graves,

But crooning, like a mother o’er her child.

Through thee gross earth with heaven is reconciled,

Thy songs, like anthems through cathedral naves

Dispel confusing passion; never raves

The storm along thy cloister undefiled.

Light of the deeps thou art! as forth I glide,

From rock and whirlpool far, and tempest’s roar,

Sudden there looms an ever verdurous shore,

Whose towers in the still wave stand glorified,

Where thou, the Virgil, who hast been my guide,

Lead’st me and leav’st me rapt, at Heaven’s door!