BELIEVE, as thou livest, that every sound that is spoken over the round world, which thou oughtest to hear, will vibrate on thine ear. Every proverb, every book, every by-word that belongs to thee for aid or comfort, shall surely come home through open or winding passage. Every friend whom not thy fantastic will but the great and tender heart in thee craveth, shall lock thee in his embrace. THE OVER-SOUL MAY SECOND God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please,—you can never have both. Between these, as a pendulum, man oscillates. INTELLECT MAY THIRD Eat thou the bread which men refuse; SAADI Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all things are at risk. It is as when a conflagration has broken out in a great city, and no man knows what is safe, or where it will end. CIRCLES MAY FIFTH I like to see that we cannot be bought and sold. The best of hospitality and of generosity is also not in the will but in fate. I find that I am not much to you; you do not need me; you do not feel me ; then am I thrust out of doors, though you proffer me house and lands. GIFTS MAY SIXTH The poet, the prophet, has a higher value for what he utters than any hearer, and therefore it gets spoken. NATURE MAY SEVENTH Then I said, "I covet Truth; Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat, I leave it behind with the games of youth." The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath, I inhaled the violet's breath; Around me stood the oaks and firs; Pine cones and acorns lay on the ground; Above me soared the eternal sky, Again I saw, again I heard, The rolling river, the morning bird;- I yielded myself to the perfect whole. EACH AND ALL MAY EIGHTH Let us be poised, and wise, and our own, to-day. Let us treat the men and women well: treat them as if they were real: perhaps they are. EXPERIENCE MAY NINTH If you follow the suburban fashion in building a sumptuous-looking house for a little money, it will appear to all eyes as a cheap dear house. There is no privacy that cannot be penetrated. No secret can be kept in the civilized world. WORSHIP MAY TENTH At the gates of the forest, the surprised man of the world is forced to leave his city estimates of great and small, wise and foolish. The knapsack of custom falls off his back with the first step he makes into these precincts. Here is sanctity which shames our religions, and reality which discredits our heroes. Here we find nature to be the circumstance which dwarfs every other circumstance, and judges like a god all men that come to her. NATURE Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, The self-same power that brought me there, brought you. THE RHODORA MAY TWELFTH We can never see christianity from the catechism; -from the pastures, from a boat in the pond, from amidst the songs of wood-birds we possibly may. CIRCLES MAY THIRTEENTH He who travels to be amused or to get somewhat which he does not carry, travels away from himself, and grows old even in youth among old things. In Thebes, in Palmyra, his will and mind have become old and dilapidated as they. He carries ruins to ruins. SELF-RELIANCE MAY FOURTEENTH Oft didst thou thread the woods in vain Flies gayly forth and sings in 'sight. WOOD NOTES MAY FIFTEENTH If thou fill thy brain with Boston and New York, with fashion and covetousness, and wilt stimulate thy jaded senses with wine and French coffee, thou shalt find no radiance of wisdom in the lonely waste of the pinewoods. THE POET MAY SIXTEENTH We fancy men are individuals; so are pumpkins; but every pumpkin in the field, goes through every point of pumpkin history. MAY SEVENTEENTH NOMINALIST AND REALIST Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous. The dawn is my Assyria; the sunset and moonrise my Paphos, and unimaginable realms of faerie; broad noon shall be my England of the senses and the understanding; the night shall be my Germany of mystic philosophy and dreams. BEAUTY MAY EIGHTEENTH Onward, and nearer draws the sun of May, |