Page:May-day and other pieces, Emerson, 1867.djvu/103

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
LOVER'S PETITION.
91

Yet count me not of spirit mean,
Or mine a mean demand,
For 't is the concentration
And worth of all the land,
The sister of the sea,
The daughter of the strand,
Composed of air and light,
And of the swart earth-might.
So little to thy poet's prayer
Thy large bounty well can spare.
And yet I think, if she were gone,
The world were better left alone.