MY FAVORITE POETS

Henry David Thoreau
My life has been the poem I would have writ,
But I could not both live and utter it.


Ralph Waldo Emerson
Give All To Love

Give all to love;
Obey thy heart;
Friends, kindred, days,
Estate, good-fame,Plans, credit, and the Muse,
-Nothing refuse.
'Tis a brave master;
Let it have scope:
Follow it utterly,
Hope beyond hope:
High and more highIt dives into noon,
With wing unspent,
Untold intent;
But it is a god,Knows its own path,
And the outlets of the sky.
It was not for the mean;
It requireth courage stout,
Souls above doubt,Valor unbending;
It will reward,-They shall returnMore than they were,
And ever ascending.

Leave all for love;
Yet, hear me, yet,
One word more thy heart behoved
,One pulse more of firm endeavor,-
Keep thee today,
To-morrow, forever,
Free as an Arab Of thy beloved.
Cling with life to the maid;
But when the surprise,
First vague shadow of surmise
Flits across her bosom young
Of a joy apart from thee,
Free be she, fancy-free;
Nor thou detain her vesture's hem,
Nor the palest rose she flung
From her summer diadem.

Ralph Waldo Emerson