Page:Poems, Emerson, 1847.djvu/87

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As sunbeams stream through liberal space,

And nothing jostle or displace,

So waved the pine-tree through my thought,

And fanned the dreams it never brought.

'Whether is better the gift or the donor?

Come to me,'

Quoth the pine-tree,

'I am the giver of honor.

My garden is the cloven rock,

And my manure the snow;

And drifting sand-heaps feed my stock,

In summer's scorching glow.

Ancient or curious,

Who knoweth aught of us?