GIVE ALL TO LOVE

by: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

      IVE 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 high
      It 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 never for the mean;
      It requireth courage stout,
      Souls above doubt,
      Valour unbending:
      Such 'twill reward;--
      They shall return
      More 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 endeavour--
      Keep thee to-day,
      To-morrow, for ever,
      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.
       
      Though thou loved her as thyself,
      As a self of purer clay;
      Though her parting dims the day,
      Stealing grace from all alive;
      Heartily know,
      When half-gods go
      The gods arrive.

"Give All to Love" is reprinted from Early Poems of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ralph Waldo Emerson. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Company, 1899.

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