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The Poems of Ralph Waldo Emerson

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Cosmos

Who saw the hid beginnings
  When Chaos and Order strove,
Or who can date the morning.
  The purple flaming of love?

I saw the hid beginnings
  When Chaos and Order strove,
And I can date the morning prime
  And purple flame of love.

Song breathed from all the forest,
  The total air was fame;
It seemed the world was all torches
  That suddenly caught the flame.


Is there never a retroscope mirror
  In the realms and corners of space
That can give us a glimpse of the battle
  And the soldiers face to face?

Sit here on the basalt courses
  Where twisted hills betray
The seat of the world-old Forces
  Who wrestled here on a day.


When the purple flame shoots up,
  And Love ascends his throne,
I cannot hear your songs, O birds,
  For the witchery of my own.

And every human heart
  Still keeps that golden day
And rings the bells of jubilee
  On its own First of May.

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