Page:Poems, Emerson, 1847.djvu/260

248 Its onward force too starkly pent

In figure, bone, and lineament?

Wilt thou, uncalled, interrogate,

Talker! the unreplying Fate?

Nor see the genius of the whole

Ascendant in the private soul,

Beckon it when to go and come,

Self-announced its hour of doom?

Fair the soul's recess and shrine,

Magic-built to last a season;

Masterpiece of love benign;

Fairer that expansive reason

Whose omen 'tis, and sign.

Wilt thou not ope thy heart to know

What rainbows teach, and sunsets show?

Verdict which accumulates

From lengthening scroll of human fates,

Voice of earth to earth returned,

Prayers of saints that inly burned,—

Saying, What is excellent,

As God lives, is permanent;