It is time to be old,
To take in sail:
The god of bounds,
Who sets to seas a shore,
Come to me in his fatal rounds,
And said: “No more!
No farther shoot
Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root.
Fancy departs; no more invent;
Contract thy firmament
To compass of a tent.
There’s not enough for this and that,
Make thy option which of two;
Economize the failing river,
Not the less revere the Giver,
Leave the many and hold the few.
Timely wise accept the terms,
Soften the fall with wary foot;
A little while
Still plan and smile,
And—fault of novel germs—
Mature the unfallen fruit.
Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires,
Bad husbands of their fires,
Who, when they gave thee breath,
Failed to bequeath
The needful sinew stark as once.
The baresark marrow to thy bones,
But left a legacy of ebbing veins,
Inconstant heat and nerveless reins,—
Amid the Muses, left thee deaf and dumb,
Amid the gladiators, halt and numb.”
As the bird trims her to the gale,
I trim myself to the storm of time,
I man the rudder, reef the sail,
Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime:
“Lowly faithful, banish fear,
Right onward drive unharmed;
The port, well worth the cruise, is near,
And every wave is charmed.”
Audio (Original Recording Made For This Site)
This is the first of these poetry readings created for this site (as this is the first poem chosen for the site!) I plan on trying quite a few different approaches with these poetry readings and I expect it’s likely that quite a few people will find them distasteful (or worse) but that’s a chance I’m willing to take.
About Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emerson was an American philosopher, essayist, and poet who lived from 1803 to 1881. He is most remembered for the Transcendentalism movement for which he is credited with starting.
“Self-Reliance” and “Nature” are among his most well known essays. Both of these essays and many more of his writings (including “Terminus”) are included in Essays and Poems.
He was a good friend of Henry David Thorough who was also a part of the Transcendental movement.
Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote this biography of Emerson in 1885. Emerson: The Ideal in America is the first (and only as of this writing) video biography made for Emerson.
Due to some technical difficulties I had to reinstall this entire site so this poem now has a later post date than it originally had.
I’m now trying to get everything close to how it was before the problem.
I decided to get rid of the post dates entirely as they aren’t really important with something like this.
Still dates on the comments though – as you can see!