May-Day and Other Pieces

Last updated October 31, 2026

By Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson's second book of poems, May-Day and Other Pieces, first published in 1867, opens with May-Day, a long poem celebrating the arrival of spring in New England. The collection also includes Boston Hymn, which he read at a celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, along with Voluntaries, Terminus, Days and other short poems on nature, freedom, aging and the moral life.

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