Page:Poems, Household Edition, Emerson, 1904.djvu/351

Rh O fire of fire! O best of things!

O mariners who never fail!

Sail swiftly through your amber vault,

An animated law, a presence to exalt.'

Ah, happy if a sun or star

Could chain the wheel of Fortune's car,

And give to hold an even state,

Neither dejected nor elate,

That haply man upraised might keep

The height of Fancy's far-eyed steep.

In vain: the stars are glowing wheels,

Giddy with motion Nature reels,

Sun, moon, man, undulate and stream,

The mountains flow, the solids seem,

Change acts, reacts; back, forward hurled,

And pause were palsy to the world.—

The morn is come: the starry crowds

Are hid behind the thrice-piled clouds;

The new day lowers, and equal odds

Have changed not less the guest of gods;

Discrowned and timid, thoughtless, worn,

The child of genius sits forlorn:

Between two sleeps a short day's stealth,

'Mid many ails a brittle health,

A cripple of God, half true, half formed,

And by great sparks Promethean warmed,

Constrained by impotence to adjourn

To infinite time his eager turn,