Poem: Blight

BLIGHT

Give me truths;
For I am weary of the surfaces,
And die of inanition.  If I knew
Only the herbs and simples  of the wood,
Rue, cinquefoil, gill, vervain and agrimony ,
Blue-vetch and trillium, hawkweed, sassafras,
Milkweeds and murky brakes,  quaint pipes and sundew,
And rare and virtuous roots, which in these woods
Draw untold juices from the common earth,
Untold, unknown, and I could surely spell
Their fragrance, and their chemistry apply
By sweet affinities to human flesh,
Driving the foe and stablishing the friend,--
O, that were much,and I could be a part
Of the round day, related to the sun
And planted world, and full executor
Of their imperfect functions.
But these young scholars, who invade our hills,
Bold as the engineer who fells the wood,
And travelling often in the cut he makes.
Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not,
And all their botany is Latin names.
The old men studied magic in the Bowen,
And human fortunes in astronomy,
And an omnipotence in chemistry,
Preferring things to names, for these were men,
Were unitarians of the united world,
And, wheretoever their clear eye-beams fell,
They caught the footsteps of the SAME. Our eyes
Are armed, but we are strangers to the stars,
And strangers to the mystic beast and bird,
And strangers to the plant and to the mine.
The injured elements say, 'Not in us;'
And night and day, ocean and continent,
Fire, plant and mineral say, 'Not in us;'
And haughtily return us stare for stare.
For we invade them impiously for gain;
We devastate them unreligiously,
And coldly ask their pottage, not their love.
Therefore they shove us from them, yield to us
Only what to our griping toil is due;
But the sweet affluence of love and song,
The rich results of the divine consents
Of man and earth, of world beloved and lover,
The nectar and ambrosia, are withheld;
And in the midst of spoils and slaves, we thieves
And pirates of the universe, shut out
Daily to a more thin and outward rind,
Turn pale and starve. Therefore, to our sick eyes,
The stunted trees look sick, the summer short,
Clouds shade the sun, which will not tan our hay,
And nothing thrives to reach its natural term;
And life, shorn of its venerable length,
Even at its greatest space is a defeat,
And dies in anger that it was a dupe;
And, in its highest noon and wantonness,
Is early frugal, like a beggar's child;
Even in the hot pursuit of the best aims
And prizer of ambition, checks its hand,
Like Alpine cataracts frozen as they leaped,
Chilled with a miserly comparison
Of the toy's purchase with the length of life.

The poem ‘Blight’ basically describes the spiritual, social, and environmental impacts of deforestation. The poem begins with a description of the forest where Emerson lists various plants and asserts their medicinal importance: “Their fragrance and their chemistry apply/ By sweet affinities to human flesh, / Driving the foe and establishing the friend.”

This poem is especially current with our situation of global warming now. The reader can feel Emerson's anger at the rape of the beauty and sacredness of every element of our earth be it animal, mineral, or vegetal in man's pursuit of profit and ego worship. And because, according to him, everything on this earth is responsive and intelligent, we reap the consequences of our thoughtlessness. 

The poem then turns to the scholars and engineers of that period, people enamored by the industrial revolution, which showed no regard for biodiversity and proceeded to clear-cut large swaths of land. Even in the 1800′s, people were losing their respect for the environment and were only interested in development and the extraction of resources that would bring the fastest and greatest financial return or as Emerson writes, “For we invade them impiously for gain.” The poem concludes with a description of the physical and spiritual degradation that humans experience as a result of their selfish exploitation of the planet: “And nothing thrives to reach its natural term,/ And life, shorn of its venerable length,/ Even at its greatest space, is a defeat,/ And dies in anger that it was a dupe.” We are duped into believing that we need all this stuff that our imagined comforts and financial security is worth the exploitation of resources, but in the end we will die with nothing and realize we bought into the lie. Essentially, we are creating our own suffering.