The Poetry Corner

Politics

By Ralph Waldo Emerson

Gold and iron are good To buy iron and gold; All earth's fleece and food For their like are sold. Boded Merlin wise, Proved Napoleon great, Nor kind nor coinage buys Aught above its rate. Fear, Craft and Avarice Cannot rear a State. Out of dust to build What is more than dust, Walls Amphion piled Phoebus stablish must. When the Muses nine With the Virtues meet, Find to their design An Atlantic seat, By green orchard boughs Fended from the heat, here the statesman ploughs Furrow for the wheat,-- When the Church is social worth, When the state-house is the hearth, Then the perfect State is come, The republican at home.