Give All to Love by Ralph Waldo Emerson - Notes

Give All to Love by Ralph Waldo Emerson - Notes

POEM:

Give all to love;
Obey thy heart;
Friends, kindred, days,
Estate, good-fame,
Plans, credit and the Muse,—
Nothing refuse.

PARAPHRASE:

Favour everything for love by rendering support. Follow your passion. Even if you had to yield or surrender great things of your life, be it friendship, intimation with relatives, passing time, owning lands, becoming famous, planning for future, gaining recognition or any source of inspiration for arts, do it and do not refuse. Anything and everything which is needed to shed away in relation to love should be given up. Nothing is superior to love.

POEM:

’T is a brave master;
Let it have scope:
Follow it utterly,
Hope beyond hope:
High and more high
It dives into noon,
With wing unspent,
Untold intent:
But it is a god,
Knows its own path
And the outlets of the sky.

PARAPHRASE:

Passion is a courageous driving force which gets control over other things. Let it make a greater domain and a farther reach. Work to the fullest extent to pursue it. Never lose hope when you fail but get going with another greater hope. A strong passion makes you reach half the way without getting tired or without a second thought. The poet says that it guides us like a God, shows us the way to head towards upto the possible destinations of our passion which is referred as 'the outlets of the sky.'

POEM:

It was never for the mean;
It requireth courage stout.
Souls above doubt,
Valor unbending,
It will reward,—
They shall return
More than they were,
And ever ascending.

PARAPHRASE:

Passion is not lowly and so it can never be possessed by cheap people. It requires great courage and no fear to keep us driving. It requires people who are not doubtful of their passion but who are firm at their choice. It requires a strength of mind which enables a person to encounter challenges with firmness. Such an approach towards passion will surely fetch us a reward. Results will be more than our passions and its benefits will still be continuing.

POEM:

Leave all for love;
Yet, hear me, yet,
One word more thy heart behoved,
One pulse more of firm endeavor,—
Keep thee to-day,
To-morrow, forever,
Free as an Arab
Of thy beloved.

PARAPHRASE:

Favour everything for love by getting rid of hindrances. Listen to me some more to make your heart comfortable and to make your will stronger. Keep yourself to the task of the day and do not postpone any kind of trial or step towards the goal. Keep yourself free from the worries of the next day just as an Arab who does not worry much about his wife or wives.

POEM:

Cling with life to the maid;
But when the surprise,
First vague shadow of surmise
Flits across her bosom young,
Of a joy apart from thee,
Free be she, fancy-free;
Nor thou detain her vesture’s hem,
Nor the palest rose she flung
From her summer diadem.

PARAPHRASE:

Devote yourself to the woman you love. But when you happen to find your woman happy with someone else other than you and you get a suspicion regarding your woman unexpectedly, let her go free. Don't bind her for yourself. Don't even retain any thread or any end of her clothes, or any rose though it may be the palest, given by her from her ornamental crown, to reminisce.

POEM:

Though thou loved her as thyself,
As a self of purer clay,
Though her parting dims the day,
Stealing grace from all alive;
Heartily know,
When half-gods go,
The gods arrive.

PARAPHRASE:

Eventhough you loved her as a part of yourself, as superior to yourself, you must let her go. Eventhough her departure may make you sorrowful, make your life dull and lifeless, you must let her go. You must know that when passions which are incomplete, which are referred to as half-gods, pass away, passions, referred to as god even before, which are accomplishable take place.

____________________________________________