The Apology

Found this old poem in one of my notebooks.

**FYI: Asters: In ancient times, it was believed that if aster leaves were burned, the perfume would drive away evil serpents. In present century, asters are known as a talisman of love and a symbol of patience.

**The Apology by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Think me not unkind and rude
That I walk alone in grove and glen;
I go to the god of the wood
To fetch his word to men.

Tax not my sloth that I
Fold my arms beside that brook;
Each cloud that floated in the sky
Writes a letter in my book.

Chide me not, laborious band,
For the idle flowers I brought;
Every aster in my hand
Goes home loaded with a thought.

There was never mystery,
But 'tis figured in the flowers;
Was never secret history
But birds sing it in the bowers.

One harvest from thy field,
Homeward brought the oxen strong;
A second crop thine acres yield,
Which I gather in a song.



Original Source: Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1904)