Write a poem or share one that you like.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home:
Thou art not my friend, and I'm not thine.
Long through thy weary crowds I roam;
A river-ark on the ocean brine,
Long I've been tossed like the driven foam;
But now, proud world! I'm going home.
Good-bye to Flattery's fawning face;
To Grandeur with his wise grimace;
To upstart Wealth's averted eye;
To supple Office, low and high;
To crowded halls, to court and street;
To frozen hearts and hasting feet;
To those who go, and those who come;
Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home.
I am going to my own hearth-stone,
Bosomed in yon green hills alone,--
A secret nook in a pleasant land,
Whose groves the frolic fairies planned;
Where arches green, the livelong day,
Echo the blackbird's roundelay,
And vulgar feet have never trod
A spot that is sacred to thought and God.
O, when I am safe in my sylvan home,
I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome;
And when I am stretched beneath the pines,
Where the evening star so holy shines,
I laugh at the lore and the pride of man,
At the sophist schools and the learned clan;
For what are they all, in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet?
Always felt a need to memorize a famous poem for when the perfect opportunity to recite it comes up. I don't think I have the voice to do such a think, much less the brain activity. This one seems to be easy to understand. If asked to interpret, I guess I would describe it as the loner's perspective on life. I could be wrong, however, as I'm sure many poem lovers might be eager to interpret it differently. I love the way the poet flirts with hints of a moribund likelihood, as if on the brink of suicide or having been terminally diagnosed. Even so, with such dark perspectives, I enjoy the descriptions of home. I so want to give each description my own personal interpretation.