Page:Poems, Household Edition, Emerson, 1904.djvu/348

312 And the poet who overhears

Some random word they say

Is the fated man of men

Whom the ages must obey:

One who having nectar drank

Into blissful orgies sank;

He takes no mark of night or day,

He cannot go, he cannot stay,

He would, yet would not, counsel keep,

But, like a walker in his sleep

With staring eye that seeth none,

Ridiculously up and down

Seeks how he may fitly tell

The heart-o'erlading miracle.

Not yet, not yet,

Impatient friend,—

A little while attend;

Not yet I sing: but I must wait,

My hand upon the silent string,

Fully until the end.

I see the coming light,

I see the scattered gleams,

Aloft, beneath, on left and right

The stars' own ether beams;

These are but seeds of days,

Not yet a steadfast morn,

An intermittent blaze,

An embryo god unborn.