Brahma (poem) - Poem

Poem

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 out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

The strong gods pine for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
But thou, meek lover of the good!
Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Speeches Divinity School Address (1838)
Poetry
  • "Concord Hymn" (1836)
  • "Uriel" (1846)
  • "The Rhodora" (1847)
  • "Brahma" (1856)
Essays
  • Nature (1836)
  • The American Scholar (1837)
  • Self-Reliance (1841)
  • Compensation (1841)
  • Over-soul (1841)
  • Circles (1841)
  • The Poet (1844)
  • Experience (1844)
  • Politics (1844)
  • New England Reformers (1844)
Essay collections
  • Essays: First Series (1841)
  • Essays: Second Series (1844)
  • Representative Men (1850)
  • The Conduct of Life (1860)
Related articles
  • The Atlantic
  • Letter to Martin Van Buren
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson House
  • The Old Manse
  • Transcendentalism
  • Transcendental Club
People
  • Amos Bronson Alcott
  • Thomas Carlyle
  • Edward Waldo Emerson
  • Mary Moody Emerson
  • Rev. William Emerson
  • Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
  • James Russell Lowell
  • Henry David Thoreau

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