I beleive the title was Volentaires.

The first line: In this age of fops and toys, wanting wisdom void of right, who shall nerve heroic boys to give all in freedom's fight.

Has anyone have a reference for it?

May events prove better than our vision

Tedd, the part you quote is from a longer poem, called "Voluntaries" which can be found here: “The Household Edition,” of Emerson’s Poems, ed. J. E. Cabot (Boston: Riverside Press, 1893), Part II, pp. 178–82.

In an age of fops and toys,
Wanting wisdom, void of right
Who shall nerve heroic boys
To Fathom all in Freedom's fight -
Break sharply off their jolly games
Forsake their comrades gay
And quit proud homes and youthful dames
For famine, toil and fray?
Yet on the nimbler air benign
Speed nimble messages
That waft the breath of grace divine
To hearts in sloth and ease
So nigh is grandeur to our hearts
So near is God to man
When Duty whispers low, Thou Must
The youth replies, I can.

---Ralph Waldo Emerson



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/07/2021 07:47PM by lg.

Thank You,

I thought it was Emerson, but was never able to locate it.

May events prove better than our vision

Hi tedd, and welcome.

Just one tiny suggestion to a newbie, as you called yourself: can you separate the quote below your messages with a line? It will make your messages clearer.

I like that very much - it reminds me of one I found quoted in a museum, but never discovered if it was complete- it's by A P Herbert written in 1940

These are the boys of whom we said
'They are not what their fathers were;
They have no heart and little head;
They slouch and do not cut their hair'.

Yet these like falcons live and die;
Theres every night have new renown
And while we heave a single sigh
They shoot a brace of bombers down.

I've just come back from a brief trip to Switzerland and wondered, considering Remembrance Sunday is almost upon us, whether the reason Switzerland always remains neutral might be because its citizens all participate in the armed services over several years. So, the decision to go to war directly involves someone everyone knows actually doing the fighting, and not just the professional soldiers or very young men when conscription comes in.

I think it is more to do with the fact they have very good natural defences. It is very hard to get an army with supplies over a range of mountains, so there is not much hope for the swiss of conquering the world, and other nations will think twice before trying to conquer them!

Good point - I was hoping someone would put me right. Thanks, Desi.

Hi
Do you know where I can find a translation for fops and toys in Spanish? Do you know if this poem has been translated into Spanish?
thanks very much for your help
Renata

Here's the entire poem in English. Perhaps you can take it line by line to Babelfish and see if any of the lines then appear on Google:

VOLUNTARIES
I
Low and mournful be the strain,
Haughty thought be far from me;
Tones of penitence and pain,
Moanings of the tropic sea;
Low and tender in the cell
Where a captive sits in chains,
Crooning ditties treasured well
From his Afric's torrid plains.
Sole estate his sire bequeathed,—
Hapless sire to hapless son,—
Was the wailing song he breathed,
And his chain when life was done.
What his fault, or what his crime?
Or what ill planet crossed his prime?
Heart too soft and will too weak
To front the fate that crouches near,—
Dove beneath the vulture's beak;—
Will song dissuade the thirsty spear?
Dragged from his mother's arms and breast,
Displaced, disfurnished here,
His wistful toil to do his best
Chilled by a ribald jeer.
Great men in the Senate sate,
Sage and hero, side by side,
Building for their sons the State,
Which they shall rule with pride.
They forbore to break the chain
Which bound the dusky tribe,
Checked by the owners' fierce disdain,
Lured by 'Union' as the bribe.
Destiny sat by, and said,
'Pang for pang your seed shall pay,
Hide in false peace your coward head,
I bring round the harvest day.'

II

FREEDOM all winged expands,
Nor perches in a narrow place;
Her broad van seeks unplanted lands;
She loves a poor and virtuous race.
Clinging to a colder zone
Whose dark sky sheds the snowflake down,
The snowflake is her banner's star,
Her stripes the boreal streamers are.
Long she loved the Northman well;
Now the iron age is done,
She will not refuse to dwell
With the offspring of the Sun;
Foundling of the desert far,
Where palms plume, siroccos blaze,
He roves unhurt the burning ways
In climates of the summer star.
He has avenues to God
Hid from men of Northern brain,
Far beholding, without cloud,
What these with slowest steps attain.
If once the generous chief arrive
To lead him willing to be led,
For freedom he will strike and strive,
And drain his heart till he be dead.

III

IN an age of fops and toys,
Wanting wisdom, void of right,
Who shall nerve heroic boys
To hazard all in Freedom's fight,—
Break sharply off their jolly games,
Forsake their comrades gay
And quit proud homes and youthful dames
For famine, toil and fray?
Yet on the nimble air benign
Speed nimbler messages,
That waft the breath of grace divine
To hearts in sloth and ease.
So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, Thou must,
The youth replies, I can.

IV

O, WELL for the fortunate soul
Which Music's wings infold,
Stealing away the memory
Of sorrows new and old!
Yet happier he whose inward sight,
Stayed on his subtile thought,
Shuts his sense on toys of time,
To vacant bosoms brought.
But best befriended of the God
He who, in evil times,
Warned by an inward voice,
Heeds not the darkness and the dread,
Biding by his rule and choice,
Feeling only the fiery thread
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 duty through the clarion calling
To the van called not in vain.
Stainless soldier on the walls,
Knowing this,—and knows no more,—
Whoever fights, whoever falls,
Justice conquers evermore,
Justice after as before,—
And he who battles on her side,
God, though he were ten times slain,
Crowns him victor glorified,
Victor over death and pain.

V

BLOOMS the laurel which belongs
To the valiant chief who fights;
I see the wreath, I hear the songs
Lauding the Eternal Rights,
Victors over daily wrongs:
Awful victors, they misguide
Whom they will destroy,
And their coming triumph hide
In our downfall, or our joy:
They reach no term, they never sleep,
In equal strength through space abide;
Though, feigning dwarfs, they crouch and creep,
The strong they slay, the swift outstride:
Fate's grass grows rank in valley clods,
And rankly on the castled steep,—
Speak it firmly, these are gods,
All are ghosts beside.


Les



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/25/2006 12:39PM by lg.

Good idea but Google finds none:

[tinyurl.com]

Hugh, am I missing something, why key the word "farsistan"? Why not "Voluntaries"?


Les

I loved the section posted by lg, so was delighted to see the whole thing -until I tried to read it - and can't make any sense of it - it just seems a group of unrelated verses. Is it supposed to be one piece and if so, how is it supposed to work - can anyone enlighten me?

>why key the word "farsistan"? Why not "Voluntaries"?

Likely to be the exact same word in a Spanish translation, I was thinking, whereas voluntaries might show up as voluntarios or another unfindable word.


>Is it supposed to be one piece and if so, how is it supposed to work - can anyone enlighten me?


Voluntaries means volunteers but has also a musical reference, if that means anything. Other sources mention that it is an elegy:

""Voluntaries." An elegy commemorating Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, commander of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment--the first black regiment--killed in the battle for Fort Wagner. Emerson justifies Shaw's death not for the preservation of the Union but for the abolition of slavery."

[www.answers.com]

[dict.die.net]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/29/2006 10:35AM by Hugh Clary.