English Poetry III: From Tennyson to Whitman.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. |
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| 767. Give All to Love |
| | | Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) |
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| GIVE all to love; | |
| Obey thy heart; | |
| Friends, kindred, days, | |
| Estate, good-fame, | |
| Plans, credit and the Muse,— | 5 |
| Nothing refuse. | |
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| ’Tis a brave master; | |
| Let it have scope: | |
| Follow it utterly, | |
| Hope beyond hope: | 10 |
| High and more high | |
| It dives into noon, | |
| With wing unspent, | |
| Untold intent; | |
| But it is a god, | 15 |
| Knows its own path | |
| And the outlets of the sky. | |
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| It was never for the mean; | |
| It requireth courage stout. | |
| Souls above doubt, | 20 |
| Valor unbending, | |
| It will reward,— | |
| They shall return | |
| More than they were, | |
| And ever ascending. | 25 |
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| Leave all for love; | |
| Yet, hear me, yet, | |
| One word more thy heart behoved, | |
| One pulse more of firm endeavor,— | |
| Keep thee to-day, | 30 |
| To-morrow, forever, | |
| Free as an Arab | |
| Of thy beloved. | |
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| Cling with life to the maid; | |
| But when the surprise, | 35 |
| First vague shadow of surmise | |
| Flits across her bosom young, | |
| Of a joy apart from thee, | |
| Free be she, fancy-free; | |
| Nor thou detain her vesture’s hem, | 40 |
| Nor the palest rose she flung | |
| From her summer diadem. | |
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| Though thou loved her as thyself, | |
| As a self of purer clay, | |
| Though her parting dims the day, | 45 |
| Stealing grace from all alive; | |
| Heartily know, | |
| When half-gods go, | |
| The gods arrive. | |
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