Page:Poems, Household Edition, Emerson, 1904.djvu/42

6 I inhaled the violet's breath;

Around me stood the oaks and firs;

Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground;

Over me soared the eternal sky,

Full of light and of deity;

Again I saw, again I heard,

The rolling river, the morning bird;—

Beauty through my senses stole;

I yielded myself to the perfect whole.

THE PROBLEM

a church; I like a cowl;

I love a prophet of the soul;

And on my heart monastic aisles

Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles;

Yet not for all his faith can see

Would I that cowlèd churchman be.

Why should the vest on him allure,

Which I could not on me endure?

Not from a vain or shallow thought

His awful Jove young Phidias brought;

Never from lips of cunning fell

The thrilling Delphic oracle;

Out from the heart of nature rolled