Page:Poems, Household Edition, Emerson, 1904.djvu/403

Rh Song breathed from all the forest,

The total air was fame;

It seemed the world was all torches

That suddenly caught the flame.

Is there never a retroscope mirror

In the realms and corners of space

That can give us a glimpse of the battle

And the soldiers face to face?

Sit here on the basalt courses

Where twisted hills betray

The seat of the world-old Forces

Who wrestled here on a day.

When the purple flame shoots up,

And Love ascends his throne,

I cannot hear your songs, O birds,

For the witchery of my own.

And every human heart

Still keeps that golden day

And rings the bells of jubilee

On its own First of May.