Page:Poems, Household Edition, Emerson, 1904.djvu/353

Rh Bended to fops who bent to him;

Surface with surfaces did swim.

Sorrow, sorrow!' the angels cried,

Is this dear Nature's manly pride?

Call hither thy mortal enemy,

Make him glad thy fall to see!

Yon waterflag, yon sighing osier,

A drop can shake, a breath can fan;

Maidens laugh and weep; Composure

Is the pudency of man.'

Again by night the poet went

From the lighted halls

Beneath the darkling firmament

To the seashore, to the old seawalls,

Out shone a star beneath the cloud,

The constellation glittered soon,—

You have no lapse; so have ye glowed

But once in your dominion.

And yet, dear stars, I know ye shine

Only by needs and loves of mine;

Light-loving, light-asking life in me

Feeds those eternal lamps I see.

And I to whom your light has spoken,

I, pining to be one of you,

I fall, my faith is broken,

Ye scorn me from your deeps of blue.