Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Ralph Waldo Emerson, comp. (1803–1882). Parnassus: An Anthology of Poetry. 1880.

Sympathy

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

LATELY, alas! I knew a gentle boy,

Whose features all were cast in Virtue’s mould,

As one she had designed for Beauty’s toy,

But after manned him for her own stronghold.

On every side he open was as day,

That you might see no lack of strength within;

For walls and ports do only serve alway

For a pretence to feebleness and sin.

Say not that Cæsar was victorious,

With toil and strife who stormed the House of Fame,

In other sense this youth was glorious,

Himself a kingdom whereso’er he came.

No strength went out to get him victory,

When all was income of its own accord;

For where he went none other was to see,

But all were parcel of their noble lord.

He forayed like the subtle haze of summer,

That stilly shows fresh landscapes to our eyes,

And revolutions works without a murmur,

Or rustling of a leaf beneath the skies.

So was I taken unawares by this,

I quite forgot my homage to confess;

Yet now am forced to know, though hard it is,

I might have loved him, had I loved him less.

Each moment as we nearer drew to each,

A stern respect withheld us further yet,

So that we seemed beyond each other’s reach,

And less acquainted than when first we met.

We two were one while we did sympathize,

So could we not the simplest bargain drive;

And what avails it, now that we are wise,

If absence doth this doubleness contrive?

Eternity may not the chance repeat;

But I must tread my single way alone,

In sad remembrance that we once did meet,

And know that bliss irrevocably gone.

The spheres henceforth my elegy shall sing,

For elegy has other subject none;

Each strain of music in my ears shall ring

Knell of departure from that other one.

Make haste and celebrate my tragedy;

With fitting strain resound, ye woods and fields;

Sorrow is dearer in such case to me

Than all the joys other occasion yields.

Is’t then too late the damage to repair?

Distance, forsooth, from my weak grasp has reft

The empty husk, and clutched the useless tare,

But in my hands the wheat and kernel left.

If I but love that virtue which he is,

Though it be scented in the morning air,

Still shall we be truest acquaintances,

Nor mortals know a sympathy more rare.