Our age isn’t much into poetry, perhaps, and our memory of American saints such as Emerson is dimmed by so much that has happened since his day. But this morning a familiar fragment of Emerson’s poem “Terminus” came to mind: ““Lowly faithful, banish fear,” and i thought it would be well to share it. He wrote this when he was 64, younger than I am now, but his creative life was more or less over, and he knew it. Did he kick against fate? Judge for yourself. Emerson’s life, and Thoreau’s, are almost miraculously appropriate examples of living lives in close connection to guidance.
To recast it in a form perhaps more accessible to those unused to poetry:
Terminus
It is time to be old, to take in sail:— The god of bounds, who sets to seas a shore, came to me in his fatal rounds, and said:
“No more! No farther shoot thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root. Fancy departs: no more invent; contract thy firmament to compass of a tent. There’s not enough for this and that, make thy option which of two; economize the failing river, not the less revere the Giver, leave the many and hold the few.
“Timely wise accept the terms, soften the fall with wary foot; a little while still plan and smile, and,—fault of novel germs,— mature the unfallen fruit.
“Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires, bad husbands of their fires, who, when they gave thee breath, failed to bequeath the needful sinew stark as once, the Baresark marrow to thy bones, but left a legacy of ebbing veins, inconstant heat and nerveless reins,— amid the Muses, left thee deaf and dumb, amid the gladiators, halt and numb.”
As the bird trims her to the gale, I trim myself to the storm of time, I man the rudder, reef the sail, obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime:
“Lowly faithful, banish fear, right onward drive unharmed; The port, well worth the cruise, is near, and every wave is charmed.”
Terminus
It is time to be old,
To take in sail:—
The god of bounds,
Who sets to seas a shore,
Came to me in his fatal rounds,
And said: “No more!
No farther shoot
Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root.
Fancy departs: no more invent;
Contract thy firmament
To compass of a tent.
There’s not enough for this and that,
Make thy option which of two;
Economize the failing river,
Not the less revere the Giver,
Leave the many and hold the few.
Timely wise accept the terms,
Soften the fall with wary foot;
A little while
Still plan and smile,
And,—fault of novel germs,—
Mature the unfallen fruit.
Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires,
Bad husbands of their fires,
Who, when they gave thee breath,
Failed to bequeath
The needful sinew stark as once,
The Baresark marrow to thy bones,
But left a legacy of ebbing veins,
Inconstant heat and nerveless reins,—
Amid the Muses, left thee deaf and dumb,
Amid the gladiators, halt and numb.”
As the bird trims her to the gale,
I trim myself to the storm of time,
I man the rudder, reef the sail,
Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime:
“Lowly faithful, banish fear,
Right onward drive unharmed;
The port, well worth the cruise, is near,
And every wave is charmed.”