Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.
Dirge
By Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)To reap its scanty corn,
What mystic fruit his acres yield
At midnight and at morn?
The plain was full of ghosts;
I wandered up, I wandered down,
Beset by pensive hosts.
Pouring as wide a flood
As when my brothers, long ago,
Came with me to the wood.
Who trod with me this lovely vale;
The strong, star-bright companions
Are silent, low, and pale.
Who made this world the feast it was,
Who learned with me the lore of time,
Who loved this dwelling-place!
They played with it in every mood;
A cell for prayer, a hall for joy,—
They treated nature as they would.
Stars flamed and faded as they bade;
All echoes hearkened for their sound,—
They made the woodlands glad or mad.
Which once our childhood knew;
Its soft leaves wound me with a grief
Whose balsam never grew.
Singing aloft in the tree!
Hearest thou, O traveller,
What he singeth to me?
With sorrow such as mine,
Out of that delicate lay couldst thou
Its heavy tale divine.
“They loved thee from their birth;
Their hands were pure, and pure their faith,—
There are no such hearts on earth.
One chamber held ye all;
A very tender history
Did in your childhood fall.
The key is gone with them;
The silent organ loudest chants
The master’s requiem.”