14 Ralph Waldo Emerson Poems

Be inspired by these famous Ralph Waldo Emerson poems. His poetry covers many different topics of life; poems written in the 1800s but ones that live on today.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in 1803. He was one of the most noted American writers. His home at Concord, Massachusetts, was the center of a group of authors and scholars which made the little town famous. Emerson preached, lectured, and wrote. Best of all, he lived a beautiful life. He died in 1882, at the age of seventy-nine.

Emerson is sometimes called a philosopher, for in his thoughts and his sayings he showed that he was a wise man.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Famous Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson:

  1. Heart That Lovest All
    by Ralph Waldo Emerson


    We love the venerable house
    Our fathers built to God; -
    In heaven are kept their grateful vows,
    Their dust endears the sod.

    Here holy thoughts a light have shed
    From many a radiant face,
    And prayers of humble virtue made
    The perfume of the place.

    And anxious hearts have pondered here
    The mystery of life,
    And prayed the eternal Light to clear
    Their doubts, and aid their strife.

    From humble tenements around
    Came up the pensive train,
    And in the church a blessing found
    That filled their homes again;

    For faith and peace and mighty love
    That from the Godhead flow,
    Showed them the life of Heaven above
    Springs from the life below.

    They live with God; their homes are dust;
    Yet here their children pray,
    And in this fleeting lifetime trust
    To find the narrow way.

    On him who by the altar stands,
    On him thy blessing fall,
    Speak through his lips thy pure commands,
    Thou heart that lovest all.

    Christian Poems
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  2. Friendship
    by Ralph Waldo Emerson


    A ruddy drop of manly blood
    The surging sea outweighs,
    The world uncertain comes and goes;
    The lover rooted stays.
    I fancied he was fled,-
    And, after many a year,
    Glowed unexhausted kindliness,
    Like daily sunrise there.
    My careful heart was free again,
    O friend, my bosom said,
    Through thee alone the sky is arched,
    Through thee the rose is red;
    All things through thee take nobler form,
    And look beyond the earth,
    The mill-round of our fate appears
    A sun-path in thy worth.
    Me too thy nobleness has taught
    To master my despair;
    The fountains of my hidden life
    Are through thy friendship fair.

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  3. A Good Book
    by Ralph Waldo Emerson


    That book is good
    Which puts me in a working mood.
    Unless to Thought is added Will,
    Apollo is an imbecile.
    What parts, what gems, what colors shine, -
    Ah, but I miss the grand design.

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  4. Wiser?
    by Ralph Waldo Emerson


    I am not wiser for my age,
    Nor skilful by my grief;
    Life loiters at the book's first page,-
    Ah! could we turn the leaf.



  5. Sculptor's Dream
    by Ralph Waldo Emerson


    Never did sculptor's dream unfold
    A form which marble doth not hold
    In its white block; yet it therein shall find
    Only the hand secure and bold
    Which still obeys the mind.
    So hide in thee, thou heavenly dame,
    The ill I shun, the good I claim;
    I alas! not well alive,
    Miss the aim whereto I strive.
    Not love, nor beauty's pride,
    Nor Fortune, nor thy coldness, can I chide,
    If, whilst within thy heart abide
    Both death and pity, my unequal skill
    Fails of the life, but draws the death and ill.



  6. Conditions of Life
    by Ralph Waldo Emerson


    The bard and mystic held me for their own,
    I filled the dream of sad, poetic maids,
    I took the friendly noble by the hand,
    I was the trustee of the hand-cart man,
    The brother of the fisher, porter, swain,
    And these from the crowd's edge well pleased beheld
    The service done to me as done to them.

    With the key of the secret he marches faster,
    From strength to strength, and for night brings day;
    While classes or tribes, too weak to master
    The flowing conditions of life, give way.

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  7. The Mountain And The Squirrel
    by Ralph Waldo Emerson


    The mountain and the squirrel
    Had a quarrel,
    And the former called the latter ''Little Prig;''
    Bun replied,
    "You are doubtless very big;
    But all sorts of things and weather
    Must be taken in together
    To make up a year.
    And a sphere.
    And I think it no disgrace
    To occupy my place:
    If I'm not so large as you,
    You are not so small as I,
    And not half so spry.
    I'll not deny you make
    A very pretty squirrel track.
    Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;
    If I cannot carry forests on my back.
    Neither can you crack a nut."

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  8. A Thanksgiving
    by Ralph Waldo Emerson


    For flowers that bloom about our feet,
    For tender grass so fresh, so sweet;
    For song of bird and hum of bee,
    For all .....
    read the entire poem at Thanksgiving Poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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  9. The Snow-Storm
    by Ralph Waldo Emerson


    Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
    Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
    Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
    Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
    And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
    The sled and traveler stopped, the courier's feet
    Delayed, all friends shut out, the house mates sit
    Around the radiant fireplace, inclosed
    In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

    Come, see the north wind's masonry.
    Out of an unseen quarry evermore
    Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
    Curves his white bastions with projected roof
    Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
    Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
    So fanciful, so savage, naught cares he
    For number or proportion. Mockingly,
    On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
    A swanlike form invests the hidden thorn;
    Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
    Mauger the farmer's sighs; and at the gate

    A tapering turret overtops the work.
    And when his hours are numbered, and the world
    Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
    Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
    To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
    Built in an age, the mad wind's night work,
    The frolic architecture of the snow.

    poems about the seasons
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  10. Good-by, Proud World!
    by Ralph Waldo Emerson


    Good-by, proud world! I'm going home:
    Thou art not my friend, and I'm not thine.
    Long through the weary crowds I roam;
    A river ark on the ocean brine,
    Long I've been tossed like the driven foam;
    But now, proud world! I'm going home.

    Good-by to Flattery's fawning face;
    To Grandeur with his wise grimace;
    To upstart Wealth's averted eye;
    To supple Office, low and high;
    To crowded halls, to court and street;
    To frozen hearts and hasting feet;
    To those who go, and those who come;
    Good-by, proud world! I'm going home.

    I'm going to my own hearthstone,
    Bosomed in yon green hills alone, -
    A secret nook in a pleasant land,
    Whose groves the frolic fairies planned;
    Where arches green, the livelong day,
    Echo the blackbird's roundelay,
    And vulgar feet have never trod
    A spot that is sacred to thought and God.

    Oh, when I am safe in my sylvan home,
    I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome;
    And when I am stretched beneath the pines,
    Where the evening star so holy shines,
    I laugh at the lore and pride of man,
    At the sophist schools and the learned clan;
    For what are they all, in their high conceit,
    When man in the bush with God may meet?

    inspirational poems
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  11. The Rhodora
    on being asked whence is the flower
    by Ralph Waldo Emerson


    In May, when sea winds pierced our solitudes,
    I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
    Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
    To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
    The purple petals, fallen in the pool,
    Made the black water with their beauty gay;
    Here might the redbird come his plumes to cool,
    And court the flower that cheapens his array.
    Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
    This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
    Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,
    Then Beauty is its own excuse for being:
    Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
    I never thought to ask, I never knew:
    But, in my simple ignorance, suppose
    The self-same Power that brought me there brought you.

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  12. When Duty Calls
    by Ralph Waldo Emerson


    In an age of fops and toys,
    Wanting wisdom, void of right,
    Who shall nerve heroic boys
    To hazard all in Freedom's fight, -
    Break sharply off their jolly games,
    Forsake their comrades gay.
    And quit proud homes and youthful dames
    For famine, toil, and fray?
    Yet on the nimble air benign
    Speed nimbler messages.
    That waft the breath of grace divine
    To hearts in sloth and ease.
    So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
    So near is God to man.
    When Duty whispers low, Thou must,
    The youth replies, l can.


  13. veterans poems
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  14. Life Is Too Short
    by Ralph Waldo Emerson


    Life is too short to waste
    In critic peep or cynic bark,
    Quarrel, or reprimand.
    'Twill soon be dark;
    Up! mind thine own aim, and
    God speed the mark!


  15. Life Is Too Short
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  16. Seek Not
    by Ralph Waldo Emerson


    Seek not the spirit, if it hide
    Inexorable to thy zeal:
    Trembler, do not whine and chide:
    Art thou not also real?
    Stoop not then to poor excuse;
    Turn on the accuser roundly; say,
    'Here am I, here will I abide
    Forever to myself soothfast;
    Go thou, sweet Heaven, or at thy pleasure stay!'
    Already Heaven with thee its lot has cast,
    For only it can absolutely deal.


  17. Heaven Poems
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