{"id":67,"date":"2025-09-26T08:43:48","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T13:43:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/?p=67"},"modified":"2025-10-03T12:42:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T16:42:12","slug":"uriel-by-ralph-waldo-emerson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/uriel-by-ralph-waldo-emerson\/","title":{"rendered":"Uriel, by Ralph Waldo Emerson"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to Harold Bloom<\/a> (1930-2019), Robert Frost deemed Ralph Waldo Emerson’s<\/a> poem Uriel<\/em> to be “the best Western poem yet.”<\/p>\n

Uriel<\/span><\/p>\n

IT fell in the ancient periods
\n Which the brooding soul surveys,
\nOr ever the wild Time coin’d itself
\n Into calendar months and days.<\/p>\n

This was the lapse of Uriel,
\nWhich in Paradise befell.
\nOnce, among the Pleiads walking,
\nSayd overheard the young gods talking;
\nAnd the treason, too long pent,
\nTo his ears was evident.
\nThe young deities discuss’d
\nLaws of form, and metre just,
\nOrb, quintessence, and sunbeams,
\nWhat subsisteth, and what seems.
\nOne, with low tones that decide,
\nAnd doubt and reverend use defied,
\nWith a look that solved the sphere,
\nAnd stirr’d the devils everywhere,
\nGave his sentiment divine
\nAgainst the being of a line.
\n‘Line in nature is not found;
\nUnit and universe are round;
\nIn vain produced, all rays return;
\nEvil will bless, and ice will burn.’
\nAs Uriel spoke with piercing eye,
\nA shudder ran around the sky;
\nThe stern old war-gods shook their heads;
\nThe seraphs frown’d from myrtle-beds;
\nSeem’d to the holy festival
\nThe rash word boded ill to all;
\nThe balance-beam of Fate was bent;
\nThe bounds of good and ill were rent;
\nStrong Hades could not keep his own,
\nBut all slid to confusion.<\/p>\n

A sad self-knowledge withering fell
\nOn the beauty of Uriel;
\nIn heaven once eminent, the god
\nWithdrew that hour into his cloud;
\nWhether doom’d to long gyration
\nIn the sea of generation,
\nOr by knowledge grown too bright
\nTo hit the nerve of feebler sight.
\nStraightway a forgetting wind
\nStole over the celestial kind,
\nAnd their lips the secret kept,
\nIf in ashes the fire-seed slept.
\nBut, now and then, truth-speaking things
\nShamed the angels’ veiling wings;
\nAnd, shrilling from the solar course,
\nOr from fruit of chemic force,
\nProcession of a soul in matter,
\nOr the speeding change of water,
\nOr out of the good of evil born,
\nCame Uriel’s voice of cherub scorn,
\nAnd a blush tinged the upper sky,
\nAnd the gods shook, they knew not why.<\/p>\n

Ralph Waldo Emerson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to Harold Bloom (1930-2019), Robert Frost deemed Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poem Uriel to be “the best Western poem yet.” Uriel IT fell in the ancient periods Which the brooding soul surveys, Or ever the wild Time coin’d itself Into calendar months and days. This was the lapse of Uriel, Which in Paradise befell. Once, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-model-poems","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121,"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions\/121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}