Page:Poems, Emerson, 1847.djvu/96

84 Of man to come, of human life,

Of Death, and Fortune, Growth, and Strife.

Once again the pine-tree sung:—

'Speak not thy speech my boughs among;

Put off thy years, wash in the breeze;

My hours are peaceful centuries.

Talk no more with feeble tongue;

No more the fool of space and time,

Come weave with mine a nobler rhyme.

Only thy Americans

Can read thy line, can meet thy glance,

But the runes that I rehearse

Understands the universe;

The least breath my boughs which tossed

Brings again the Pentecost;

To every soul it soundeth clear

In a voice of solemn cheer,—

"Am I not thine? Are not these thine?"

And they reply, "Forever mine!"

My branches speak Italian,

English, German, Basque, Castilian,