Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Nature”
William Cullen Bryant
“To a Waterfowl”
Philip Freneau
“On the Religion of Nature”
from “Nature”
“Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of
the fathers. ... The foregoing generations beheld God
and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why
should not we also enjoy an original relation to the
universe? Why should we not have a poetry and
philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a
religion by revelation to us, and not the history of
theirs? ... why should we grope among the dry bones
of the past, or put the living generation into
masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The sun
shines to-day also. ... There are new lands, new men,
new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and
laws and worship.”
(p. 508)
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
from “Nature”
“In the woods, too, a man casts off his years, as
the snake his slough, and at what period soever
of life, is always a child. In the woods, is
perpetual youth ... In the woods, we return to
reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can
befal me in life,–...which nature cannot repair.
Standing on the bare ground,–my head bathed
by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,–
all mean egotism vanishes. I become a
transparent eye-ball. I am nothing. I see all. The
currents of the Universal Being circulate through
me; I am part and particle of God.”
(p. 511)
from “To a Waterfowl”
There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, –
The desert and illimitable air, –
Lone wandering, but not lost.
And soon that toil shall end
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows, reeds shall bend
Soon o’er thy sheltered nest.
Thou’rt gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up they form; yet, on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thous hast given,
And shall not soon depart.
He, who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.
from “On the Religion of Nature”
The power, that gives with liberal hand
The blessings man enjoys, while here,
And scatters through a smiling land
Abundant products of the year;
That power of nature, ever blessed,
bestowed religion with the rest
Born with ourselves, her early sway
Inclines the tender mind to take
The path of right, fair virtue’s way
Its own felicity to make.
This universally extends
And leads to no mysterious ends.
Religion such as naturetaught,
With all divine perfection suits;
Had all mankind this system sought
Sophists would cease their vain dispute4s,
And from this source would nations know
All that can make their heaven below.