Page:Poems, Household Edition, Emerson, 1904.djvu/181

 DIRGE

CONCORD, 1838

the middle of the mount

Up which the incarnate soul must climb,

And paused for them, and looked around,

With me who walked through space and time.

Five rosy boys with morning light

Had leaped from one fair mother's arms,

Fronted the sun with hope as bright,

And greeted God with childhood's psalms.

Knows he who tills this lonely field

To reap its scanty corn,

What mystic fruit his acres yield

At midnight and at morn?

In the long sunny afternoon

The plain was full of ghosts;

I wandered up, I wandered down,

Beset by pensive hosts.