Page:Poems, Household Edition, Emerson, 1904.djvu/116

 ASTRÆA

the herald is who wrote

His rank, and quartered his own coat.

There is no king nor sovereign state

That can fix a hero's rate;

Each to all is venerable,

Cap-a-pie invulnerable,

Until he write, where all eyes rest,

Slave or master on his breast.

I saw men go up and down,

In the country and the town,

With this tablet on their neck,

Judgment and a judge we seek.'

Not to monarchs they repair,

Nor to learned jurist's chair;

But they hurry to their peers,

To their kinsfolk and their dears;

Louder than with speech they pray,—

What am I? companion, say.'

And the friend not hesitates

To assign just place and mates;

Answers not in word or letter,

Yet is understood the better;

Each to each a looking-glass,

Reflects his figure that doth pass.