Poems (Emerson, Household Edition, 1904)/Good Hope

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

GOOD HOPE

The cup of life is not so shallow
That we have drained the best,
That all the wine at once we swallow
And lees make all the rest.

Maids of as soft a bloom shall marry
As Hymen yet hath blessed,
And fairer forms are in the quarry
Than Phidias released.

1827.