Poems (Emerson, 1847)/Berrying

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

For other versions of this work, see Berrying.

BERRYING.

 

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'May be true what I had heard,—
Earth 's a howling wilderness,
Truculent with fraud and force,'
Said I, strolling through the pastures,
And along the river-side.
Caught among the blackberry vines,
Feeding on the Ethiops sweet,
Pleasant fancies overtook me.
I said, 'What influence me preferred,
Elect, to dreams thus beautiful?'
The vines replied, 'And didst thou deem
No wisdom to our berries went?'