BOSTON
by Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1803-1882) |
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(Sicut Patribus, sit Deus Nobis)
HE rocky nook
with hilltops three
Looked eastward from the farms,
And twice each day the flowing sea
Took Boston in its
arms;
The men of yore were stout and poor,
And sailed
for bread to every shore.
And where they went on
trade intent
They did what freeman can,
Their
dauntless ways did all men praise,
The merchant was a
man.
The world was made for honest trade,--
To plant
and eat be none afraid.
The waves that rocked them on
the deep
To them their secret told;
Said the winds
that sung the lads to sleep,
"Like us be free and bold!"
The honest waves refuse to slaves
The empire of the ocean
caves.
Old Europe groans with palaces,
Has lords
enough and more;--
We plant and build by foaming seas
A city of the poor;--
For day by day could Boston Bay
Their honest labor overpay.
We grant no dukedoms to
the few,
We hold like rights and shall;--
Equal on
Sunday in the pew,
On Monday in the mall.
For what
avail the plough or sail,
Or land or life, if freedom
fail?
The noble craftsmen we promote,
Disown the
knave and fool;
Each honest man shall have his vote,
Each child shall have his school.
A union then of honest
men,
Or union nevermore again.
The wild rose and
the barberry thorn
Hung out their summer pride
Where
now on heated pavements worn
The feet of millions stride.
Fair rose the planted hills behind
The good town on
the bay,
And where the western hills declined
The
prairie stretched away.
What care though rival cities
soar
Along the stormy coast:
Penn's town, New York,
and Baltimore,
If Boston knew the most!
They
laughed to know the world so wide;
The mountains said:
"Good-day!
We greet you well, you Saxon men,
Up with
your towns and stay!"
The world was made for honest
trade,--
To plant and eat be none afraid.
"For
you," they said, "no barriers be,
For you no sluggard
rest;
Each street leads downward to the sea,
Or
landward to the West."
O happy town beside the sea,
Whose roads lead everywhere to all;
Than thine no deeper
moat can be,
No stouter fence, no steeper wall!
Bad news from George on the English throne:
"You are
thriving well," said he;
"Now by these presents be it
known,
You shall pay us a tax on tea;
'Tis very
small,--no load at all,--
Honor enough that we send the
call."
"Not so," said Boston, "good my lord,
We
pay your governors here
Abundant for their bed and board,
Six thousand pounds a year.
(Your highness knows our
homely word,)
Millions for self-government,
But for
tribute never a cent."
The cargo came! and who could
blame
If Indians seized the tea,
And, chest by chest,
let down the same
Into the laughing sea?
For what
avail the plough or sail
Or land or life, if freedom
fail?
The townsmen braved the English king,
Found
friendship in the French,
And Honor joined the patriot
ring
Low on their wooden bench.
O bounteous seas
that never fail!
O day remembered yet!
O happy port
that spied the sail
Which wafted Lafayette!
Pole-star
of light in Europe's night,
That never faltered from the
right.
Kings shook with fear, old empires crave
The secret force to find
Which fired the little State to
save
The rights of all mankind.
But right is might
through all the world;
Province to province faithful
clung,
Through good and ill the war-bolt hurled,
Till
Freedom cheered and the joy-bells rung.
The sea
returning day by day
Restores the world-wide mart;
So
let each dweller on the Bay
Fold Boston in his heart,
Till these echoes be choked with snows,
Or over the town
blue ocean flows. |
By Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
Listed May 9, 2012 |
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Note:
-
Ralph Waldo Emerson read his poem on December
16, 1873, in Faneuil Hall, on the one hundredth
anniversary of the "Boston Tea-Party", which a band of
men disguised as Indians had quietly emptied the taxed
tea-chests of three British ships into Boston Harbor.
- The Latin words that he placed at the beginning, and
which are the motto of Boston, he translated "God with
the Fathers, So with Us".
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