764. The Apology. Ralph Waldo Emerson. 1909-14. English Poetry III: From Tennyson to Whitman. The Harvard Classics

English Poetry III: From Tennyson to Whitman.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

764. The Apology

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)


THINK me not unkind and rude
That I walk alone in grove and glen;
I go to the god of the wood
To fetch his word to men.

Tax not my sloth that I	5
Fold my arms beside the brook;
Each cloud that floated in the sky
Writes a letter in my book.

Chide me not, laborious band,
For the idle flowers I brought;	10
Every aster in my hand
Goes home loaded with a thought.

There was never mystery
But ’tis figured in the flowers;
Was never secret history	15
But birds tell it in the bowers.

One harvest from thy field
Homeward brought the oxen strong;
A second crop thine acres yield,
Which I gather in a song.	20