Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson's father was a Unitarian minister who died leaving his son to be brought up by his mother and aunt. Educated at Harvard, Emerson began writing journals filled with observations and ideas which would form the basis of his later essays and poems. After a period of teaching, Emerson returned to Harvard to join the Divinity School where he was less than a perfect student owing to his poor health and a lack of conviction in religious dogma. He was ordained and was both effective and popular as a preacher, but felt compelled to resign because he did not feel he could conscientiously serve communion. In Emerson visited Europe, where he met Wordsworth, Coleridge and Carlyle through whom he became interested in transcendental thought. His meeting with Coleridge was to prove particularly influential as Emerson developed his themes of two levels of reality, the physical and the supernatural or Oversoul as he later called it. On his return to Boston Emerson concentrated on lecturing rather than preaching, and lectures such as The Philosophy of History would form the foundation of future writings. He settled in Concord in where he became friends with other figures in the transcendental movement such as Thoreau and Hawthorne and began writing for and editing The Dial. After his second Essays, Emerson's writing began to show less confidence in the individual. He returned to Europe in and renewed his friendship with Carlyle, with whom he had kept in touch by letter, and met other European thinkers and writers. During his last years he became increasingly involved in the anti-slavery campaign, but fell a victim to dementia, writing Terminus in the realisation that his intellect was failing.  www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive Alphonso Of Castile I Alphonso live and learn, Seeing nature go astern. Things deteriorate in kind, Lemons run to leaves and rind, Meagre crop of figs and limes, Shorter days and harder times. Flowering April cools and dies In the insufficient skies; Imps at high Midsummer blot Half the sun's disk with a spot; 'Twill not now avail to tan Orange cheek, or skin of man: Roses bleach, the goats are dry, Lisbon quakes, the people cry. Yon pale scrawny fisher fools, Gaunt as bitterns in the pools, Are no brothers of my blood,— They discredit Adamhood. Eyes of gods! ye must have seen, O'er your ramparts as ye lean, The general debility, Of genius the sterility, Mighty projects countermanded, Rash ambition broken-handed, Puny man and scentless rose Tormenting Pan to double the dose. Rebuild or ruin: either fill Of vital force the wasted rill, Or, tumble all again in heap To weltering chaos, and to sleep. Say, Seigneurs, are the old Niles dry, Which fed the veins of earth and sky, That mortals miss the loyal heats Which drove them erst to social feats, Now to a savage selfness grown, Think nature barely serves for one; With. science poorly mask their hurt, And vex the gods with question pert, Immensely curious whether you Still are rulers, or Mildew. Masters, I'm in pain with you; Masters, I'll be plain with you. In my palace of Castile, I, a king, for kings can feel; There my thoughts the matter roll, And solve and oft resolve the whole, And, for I'm styled Alphonse the Wise, Ye shall not fail for sound advice, Before ye want a drop of rain, Hear the sentiment of Spain.