WRITTEN IN NAPLES, MARCH, 1833 by RALPH WALDO EMERSON

We are what we are made; each following day
Is the Creator of our human mould
Not less than was the first; the all wise God
Gilds a few points in every several life
And as each flower upon the fresh hill-side,
And every coloured petal of each flower,
Is sketched and dyed each with a new design,
Its spot of purple, & its streak of brown,
So each man's life shall have its proper lights,
And a few joys, a few peculiar charms,
For him round in the melancholy hours,
And reconcile him to the common days.
Not many men see beauty in the fogs
Of close low pine-woods in a river town:
Yet unto me not morn's magnificence,
Nor the red rainbow of a summer eve,
Nor Rome, nor joyful Paris, nor the halls
Of rich men blazing hospitable light,
Nor wit, nor eloquence, no, nor even the song
Of any woman that is now alive,
Hath such a soul, such divine influence,
Such resurrection of the happy past,
As is to me when I behold the morn
Ope in such low moist road-side, & beneath
Peep the blue violets out of the black loam,
Pathetic silent poets that sing to me
Thine elegy, sweet singer, sainted wife!

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