Page:Poems, Household Edition, Emerson, 1904.djvu/164

128 Thus far to-day your favors reach,

O fair, appeasing presences!

Ye taught my lips a single speech,

And a thousand silences.

Space grants beyond his fated road

No inch to the god of day;

And copious language still bestowed

One word, no more, to say.

THE HOUSE

is no architect

Can build as the Muse can;

She is skilful to select

Materials for her plan;

Slow and warily to choose

Rafters of immortal pine,

Or cedar incorruptible,

Worthy her design,

She threads dark Alpine forests

Or valleys by the sea,

In many lands, with painful steps,

Ere she can find a tree.