POET’S CORNER LIT.

1
Ralph Waldo Emerson included the “Fable” in his Selected Poems published in 1876.

Fable
Ralph Waldo Emerson - 1803-1882

The mountain and the squirrel

Had a quarrel;
And the former called the latter ‘Little Prig.’
Bun replied,
‘You are doubtless very big;
But all sorts of things and weather
Must be taken in together,
To make up a year
And a sphere.
And I think it no disgrace
To occupy my place.
If I'm not so large as you,
You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry.
I'll not deny you make
A very pretty squirrel track;
Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;
If I cannot carry forests on my back,
Neither can you crack a nut.’

A note of interest is the history behind the word good-bye. It became a shortened form of the phrase
God be with you.

Good-Bye
By Ralph Waldo Emerson

Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home:

Thou art not my friend, and I'm not thine.

Long through thy weary crowds I roam;

A river-ark on the ocean brine,

Long I've been tossed like the driven foam;

But now, proud world! I'm going home.

Good-bye to Flattery's fawning face;

Lesson 3
 POET’S CORNER LIT. 1
To Grandeur with his wise grimace;

To upstart Wealth's averted eye;

To supple Office, low and high;

To crowded halls, to court and street;

To frozen hearts and hasting feet;

To those who go, and those who come;

Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home.

I am going to my own hearth-stone,

Bosomed in yon green hills alone, —

A secret nook in a pleasant land,

Whose groves the frolic fairies planned;

Where arches green, the livelong day,

Echo the blackbird's roundelay,

And vulgar feet have never trod

A spot that is sacred to thought and God.

O, when I am safe in my sylvan home,

I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome;

And when I am stretched beneath the pines,

Where the evening star so holy shines,

I laugh at the lore and the pride of man,

At the sophist schools, and the learned clan;

For what are they all, in their high conceit,

When man in the bush with God may meet?

Lesson 3
 POET’S CORNER LIT. 1
Questions

1) Why do you think Emerson titled this poem “Fable”?

2) What do you think the poem “Fable” means?

3) What is the rhyme scheme in “Good-bye”?

4) The mood of a poem arouses feelings in the reader. What is the mood of the “Good-bye”?

5) To what or to whom was the poet saying good-bye?

6) Read the last two lines of “Good-bye”. Where does the poet believe one can find God?

Do you agree or disagree?

7) What does the poem “Good-bye” mean to you?

8) Try writing a fable poem of your own.

Lesson 3