Page:Poems, Household Edition, Emerson, 1904.djvu/115

Rh Yet do not I implore

The wrinkled shopman to my sounding woods,

Nor bid the unwilling senator

Ask votes of thrushes in the solitudes.

Every one to his chosen work;—

Foolish hands may mix and mar;

Wise and sure the issues are.

Round they roll till dark is light,

Sex to sex, and even to odd;—

The over-god

Who marries Right to Might,

Who peoples, unpeoples,—

He who exterminates

Races by stronger races,

Black by white faces,—

Knows to bring honey

Out of the lion;

Grafts gentlest scion

On pirate and Turk.

The Cossack eats Poland,

Like stolen fruit;

Her last noble is ruined,

Her last poet mute:

Straight, into double band

The victors divide;

Half for freedom strike and stand;—

The astonished Muse finds thousands at her side.