Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

George Willis Cooke, comp. The Poets of Transcendentalism: An Anthology. 1903.

Emerson

Franklin Benjamin Sanborn (1831–1917)

LONELY these meadows green,

Silent these warbling woodlands must appear

To us, by whom our Poet-sage was seen

Wandering among their beauties, year by year,—

Listening with delicate ear

To each fine note that fell from tree or sky,

Or rose from earth on high,—

Glancing his falcon eye,

In kindly radiance, as of some young star,

At all the shows of Nature near and far,

Or on the tame procession plodding by

Of daily toil and care,—and all Life’s pageantry;

Then darting forth warm beams of wit and love,

Wide as the sun’s great orbit, and as high above

These paths wherein our lowly tasks we ply.

His was the task and his the lordly gift

Our eyes, our hearts, bent earthward, to uplift;

He found us chained in Plato’s fabled cave,

Our faces long averted from the blaze

Of Heaven’s broad light, and idly turned to gaze

On shadows, flitting ceaseless as the wave

That dashes ever idly on some isle enchanted;

By shadows haunted

We sat,—amused in youth, in manhood daunted,

In vacant age forlorn,—then slipped within the grave,

The same dull chain still clasped around our shroud.

These captives, bound and bowed,

He from their dungeon like that angel led,

Who softly to imprisoned Peter said,

“Arise up quickly! gird thyself and flee!”

We wist not whose the thrilling voice, we knew our souls were free.

Ah! blest those years of youthful hope,

When every breeze was zephyr, every morning May!

Then, as we bravely climbed the slope

Of life’s steep mount, we gained a wider scope

At every stair,—and could with joy survey

The track beneath us, and the upward way;

Both lay in light,—round both the breath of love

Fragrant and warm from Heaven’s own tropic blew;

Beside us what glad comrades smiled and strove!

Beyond us what dim visions rose to view!

With thee, dear Master, through that morning land

We journeyed happy; thine the guiding hand,

Thine the far-looking eye, the dauntless smile;

Thy lofty song of hope did the long march beguile.

Now scattered wide and lost to loving sight

The gallant train

That heard thy strain!

’T is May no longer,—shadows of the night

Beset the downward path, thy light withdrawn,—

And with thee vanished that perpetual dawn

Of which thou wert the harbinger and seer.

Yet courage! comrades,—though no more we hear

Each other’s voices, lost within this cloud

That Time and Chance about our way have cast,—

Still his brave music haunts the hearkening ear,

As ’mid bold cliffs and dewy passes of the Past

Be that our countersign! for chanting loud,

His magic song, though far apart we go,

Best shall we thus discern both friend and foe.