Page:Poems, Household Edition, Emerson, 1904.djvu/276

240 Nor Byron's clarion of disdain,

Scott, the delight of generous boys,

Or Wordsworth, Pan's recording voice,—

Not one of all can put in verse,

Or to this presence could rehearse

The sights and voices ravishing

The boy knew on the hills in spring,

When pacing through the oaks he heard

Sharp queries of the sentry-bird,

The heavy grouse's sudden whir,

The rattle of the kingfisher;

Saw bonfires of the harlot flies

In the lowland, when day dies;

Or marked, benighted and forlorn,

The first far signal-fire of morn.

These syllables that Nature spoke,

And the thoughts that in him woke,

Can adequately utter none

Save to his ear the wind-harp lone.

Therein I hear the Parcæ reel

The threads of man at their humming wheel,

The threads of life and power and pain,

So sweet and mournful falls the strain.

And best can teach its Delphian chord

How Nature to the soul is moored,

If once again that silent string,

As erst it wont, would thrill and ring.