Leading over heroic ground,
Walled with mortal terror round,
To the aim which him allures,
And the sweet heaven his deed secures.
Peril around, all else appalling,
Cannon in front and leaden rain
Him duly through the clarion calling
To the van called not in vain."

It is in this poem that we find the lines which, a moment after they
were written, seemed as if they had been carved on marble for a thousand
years:--

"So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, _Thou must_,
The youth replies, _I can_."

"Saadi" was published in the "Atlantic Monthly" in 1864, "My Garden" in
1866, "Terminus" in 1867. In the same year these last poems with many
others were collected in a small volume, entitled "May-Day, and
Other Pieces." The general headings of these poems are as follows:
May-Day.--The Adirondacs.--Occasional and Miscellaneous Pieces.--Nature
and Life.--Elements.--Quatrains.--Translations.--Some of these poems,
which were written at long intervals, have been referred to in previous
pages. "The Adirondacs" is a pleasant narrative, but not to be compared
for its poetical character with "May-Day," one passage from which,
beginning,

"I saw the bud-crowned Spring go forth,"

is surpassingly imaginative and beautiful. In this volume will be found
"Brahma," "Days," and others which are well known to all readers of
poetry.

Emerson's delineations of character are remarkable for high-relief and
sharp-cut lines. In his Remarks at the Funeral Services for Abraham
Lincoln, held in Concord, April 19, 1865, he drew the portrait of the
homespun-robed chief of the Republic with equal breadth and delicacy:--

"Here was place for no holiday magistrate, no fair weather sailor;
the new pilot was hurried to the helm in a tornado. In four
years,--four years of battle-days,--his endurance, his fertility
of resources, his magnanimity, were sorely tried and never found
wanting. There, by his courage, his justice, his even temper, his
fertile counsel, his humanity, he stood a heroic figure in the
centre of a heroic epoch. He is the true history of the American
people in his time. Step by step he walked before them; slow
with their slowness, quickening his march by theirs, the true
representative of this continent; an entirely public man; father of
his country; the pulse of twenty millions throbbing in his heart,
the thought of