On this day in literature . . .

~ 1882 ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, the most influential writer in American Romanticism, dies in Concord, Massachusetts. He is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, near both Henry David Thoreau and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful boys
Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs;
Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet
Clear of the grave.

~ from "Hamatreya" (1847)