Page:Poems, Household Edition, Emerson, 1904.djvu/137

Rh Hills and islands, cloud and tree,

In her form and motion.

I ask no bauble miniature,

Nor ringlets dead

Shorn from her comely head,

Now that morning not disdains

Mountains and the misty plains

Her colossal portraiture;

They her heralds be,

Steeped in her quality,

And singers of her fame

Who is their Muse and dame.

Higher, dear swallows! mind not what I say.

Ah! heedless how the weak are strong,

Say, was it just,

In thee to frame, in me to trust,

Thou to the Syrian couldst belong?

I am of a lineage

That each for each doth fast engage;

In old Bassora's schools, I seemed

Hermit vowed to books and gloom,—

Ill-bestead for gay bridegroom.

I was by thy touch redeemed;

When thy meteor glances came,

We talked at large of worldly fate,

And drew truly every trait.