To Ellen, at the South

The green grass is growing,

The morning wind is in it, 

'Tis a tune worth the knowing, 

Though it change every minute. '

Tis a tune of the spring, 

Every year plays it over, 

To the robin on the wing, 

To the pausing lover. 

O'er ten thousand thousand acres 

Goes light the nimble zephyr, 

The flowers, tiny feet of shakers, 

Worship him ever. 

Hark to the winning sound! 

They summon thee, dearest, 

Saying; "We have drest for thee the ground, 

Nor yet thou appearest. 

"O hasten, 'tis our time, 

Ere yet the red summer 

Scorch our delicate prime, 

Loved of bee, the tawny hummer. 

"O pride of thy race! 

Sad in sooth it were to ours, 

If our brief tribe miss thy face,— 

We pour New England flowers. 

 "Fairest! choose the fairest members 

Of our lithe society; 

June's glories and September's 

Show our love and piety. 

 "Thou shalt command us all, 

April's cowslip, summer's clover 

To the gentian in the fall, 

Blue-eyed pet of blue-eyed lover. 

 "O come, then, quickly come, 

We are budding, we are blowing, 

And the wind which we perfume 

Sings a tune that's worth thy knowing."

--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, preacher, and member of the Transcendentalists

The Snow Storm

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, 
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields, 
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air 
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, 
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end. 
The sled and traveler stopped, the courier's feet 
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit 
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed 
In a tumultuous privacy of storm. 

    Come see the north wind's masonry. 
Out of an unseen quarry evermore 
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer 
Curves his white bastions with projected roof 
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door. 
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work 
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he 
For number or proportion. Mockingly, 
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths; 
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn; 
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall, 
Maugre the farmer's sighs; and, at the gate, 
A tapering turret overtops the work. 
And when his hours are numbered, and the world 
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not, 
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art 
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone, 
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work, 
The frolic architecture of the snow.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American Transcendentalist essayist, philosopher, and poet