Page:Poems of nature, Thoreau, 1895.djvu/132

108 That lives one tragedy,

And not seventy;

A conscience worth keeping,

Laughing not weeping;

A conscience wise and steady,

And for ever ready;

Not changing with events,

Dealing in compliments;

A conscience exercised about

Large things, where one may doubt.

I love a soul not all of wood,

Predestinated to be good,

But true to the backbone

Unto itself alone,

And false to none;

Born to its own affairs,

Its own joys and own cares;