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About this Poem 

“Letters” was published in May-Day and Other Pieces (Ticknor and Fields, 1867). 

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Letters

Every day brings a ship,
Every ship brings a word;
Well for those who have no fear,
Looking seaward well assured
That the word the vessel brings
Is the word they wish to hear.

This poem is in the public domain. 

This poem is in the public domain. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson

American poet, essayist, and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in 1803 in Boston.

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poem
Brahma
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1857
If the red slayer think he slays,
    Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
    I keep, and pass, and turn again.

Far or forgot to me is near;
    Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanished gods to me appear;
    And one to me are shame and fame.

They reckon ill who leave me
poem
The Problem
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1847
I like a church; I like a cowl;
I love a prophet of the soul;
and on my heart monastic aisles
Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles;
Yet not for all his faith can see
Would I that cowled churchman be. 

Why should the vest on him alure,
Which I could not on me endure?

Not from a vain or shallow thought
His
poem
Fable
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1899
The mountain and the squirrel   
Had a quarrel;   
And the former called the latter ‘Little Prig.’ 
Bun replied,   
‘You are doubtless very big;          
But all sorts of things and weather   
Must be taken in together,   
To make up a year   
And a sphere.   
And I think it no disgrace   
To occupy my place
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