Page:Poems, Emerson, 1847.djvu/115

Rh Yet, will you learn our ancient speech,

These the masters who can teach.

Fourscore or a hundred words

All their vocal muse affords;

These they turn in other fashion

Than the writer or the parson.

I can spare the college bell,

And the learned lecture, well;

Spare the clergy and libraries,

Institutes and dictionaries,

For that hardy English root

Thrives here, unvalued, underfoot.

Rude poets of the tavern hearth,

Squandering your unquoted mirth,

Which keeps the ground, and never soars,

While Jake retorts, and Reuben roars;

Tough and screaming, as birch-bark,

Goes like bullet to its mark;

While the solid curse and jeer

Never balk the waiting ear.

To student ears keen relished jokes

On truck, and stock, and farming folks,—