to a sky-lark

      Like a poet hidden
        In the light of thought,
      Singing hymns unbidden,
        Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not.

Found this while flipping through Parnassus during the many commercial breaks in the Seahawks/Redskins game last evening. It's from Percy Byshhe Shelley's To a Sky-Lark.

I like the ideosyncrasies of this Emersonian collection of poems. It's more like a commonplace book than a traditional anthology: thematic groups of poems, and parts of poems, ballads, songs, and speeches from Shakespearean plays with no historic reference, explanation, or sourcing.

In this case Emerson just gives the one stanza. I think I can see the rationale for his decision to do this. It's a gorgeous simile beautifully expressed; its power is diluted in the poem entire, where it shows up close to the midpoint. The others are not so successful (for example the next stanza reads: "Like a high-born maiden/In a palace tower,/Soothing her love-laden/Soul in secret hour/With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:")

creatures of the sun

Here is another poem from Parnassus, the anthology compiled by Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1874 (pdf).

Nature. How young and fresh am I tonight,
To see't kept day by so much light,
And twelve my sons stand in their maker's sight!
Help, wise Prometheus, something must be done
To show they are the creatures of the sun,
That each to other
Is a brother,
And Nature here no stepdame, but a mother
Chorus. Come forth, come forth, Prove all the numbers then
That make perfection up, and may absolve you men.
[Nature.] But show thy winding ways and arts,
Thy risings and thy timely starts
Of stealing fire from ladies' eyes and hearts.
Those softer circles are the young man's heaven,
And there more orbs and planets are than seven,
To know whose motion
Were a notion
As worthy of youth's study as devotion.
Chorus. Come forth, come forth, prove all the time will gain,
For Nature bids the best, and never bade in vain.

This comes from a masque, Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists at Court. Jonson's stage direction says the poem is sung in "a glorious bower wherein Nature was placed with Prometheus at her feet, and the twelve masquers standing about them." The Wikipedia entry on it says the masque was a success with the king and may have helped to forward the ambitions of a court favorite whom Jonson wished to see promoted.

{source}

when shall spring visit?

Here is another poem from Parnassus, the anthology compiled by Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1874 (pdf).

Nature

'Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more;
I mourn, but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you:
For morn is approaching, your charms to restore,
Perfumed with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew:
Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn;
Kind Nature the embryo blossom will save.
But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn?
O when shall it dawn on the night of the grave?

Here Emerson gives us an extract from a long poem by James Beattie, The Minstrel; or, the Progress of Genius.

{source. There's a long article on Beattie here.}

I sing of Time's trans-shifting

For the remainder of April I hope to reproduce a poem a day out of Parnassus, the anthology compiled by Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1874 (pdf).

Here is the first poem in the compilation.

The Argument of His Book

by Robert Herrick
(1591-1674)

THE ARGUMENT OF HIS BOOK
I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers,
Of April, May, of June, and July flowers.
I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes,
Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes.
I write of youth, of love, and have access
By these to sing of cleanly wantonness.
I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by piece
Of balm, of oil, of spice, and ambergris.
I sing of Time's trans-shifting; and I write
How roses first came red, and lilies white.
I write of groves, of twilights, and I sing
The court of Mab, and of the fairy king.
I write of Hell; I sing (and ever shall)
Of Heaven, and hope to have it after all.

Robert Herrick

{source}