Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was a beloved American poet who lived in Concord, Massachusetts. He was an unerring friend to Nathaniel Hawthorne, Bronson Alcott and his family (including Louisa May Alcott), Margaret Fuller, and Henry David Thoreau. His inheritance from his first wife, whom he married when she was eighteen and who died two years later, helped to see his friends through financial ups and downs. Collectively, this group of writers are known as “Transcendentalists.” They have given us some of the most important literary works of the nineteenth century.
This morning, I was sent this poem by poem-hunter.com Newsletter. I am signed up to receive a poem a day.
Good-by
Good-by, proud world, I’m going home,
Thou’rt not my friend, and I’m not thine;
Long through thy 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 hearth-stone
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 the 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.
A mark of good poetry is its timeless meaning. I hope that you like this poem as much as I do.
Patricia Cummings
Quilter’s Muse Publications
