English Literature Made Easy for Students

A Nation’s Strength — Detailed Summary A Nation’s Strength by Ralph Waldo Emerson A Nation’s Strength is a patriotic poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson. The poem deals with a very important question: What really makes a nation strong, powerful and great?   The poet rejects the commonly held ideas that wealth, military power, pride or material prosperity can make a nation permanently strong. According to Emerson, the real strength of a nation lies in its brave, truthful, honest, hardworking and self-sacrificing people .   The poem begins with a series of rhetorical questions. The poet compares a nation to a great building and asks what makes its pillars high and its foundations strong. He also asks what gives a nation enough strength to face and resist the enemies surrounding it. Through these questions, Emerson prepares the reader to think deeply about the real basis of national greatness. In the second stanza, the poet rejects gold as the source of a nation's...