Page:Poems, Household Edition, Emerson, 1904.djvu/84

48 Unerring to the ocean sand.

The moss upon the forest bark

Was pole-star when the night was dark;

The purple berries in the wood

Supplied me necessary food;

For Nature ever faithful is

To such as trust her faithfulness.

When the forest shall mislead me,

When the night and morning lie,

When sea and land refuse to feed me,

'T will be time enough to die;

Then will yet my mother yield

A pillow in her greenest field,

Nor the June flowers scorn to cover

The clay of their departed lover.'

WOODNOTES

II

As sunbeams stream through liberal space

And nothing jostle or displace,

So waved the pine-tree through my thought

And fanned the dreams it never brought.

Whether is better, the gift or the donor?

Come to me,'

Quoth the pine-tree,

I am the giver of honor.