English Poetry III: From Tennyson to Whitman.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
765. Brahma
I
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.
Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanished gods to me appear;
And one to me are shame and fame.
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.
And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
But thou, meek lover of the good!
Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.