Page:Writings of Henry David Thoreau (1906) v5.djvu/440

398 'T hath come in summer's broadest noon,

By a gray wall or some chance place,

Unseasoned time, insulted June,

And vexed the day with its presuming face.

Such fragrance round my couch it makes,

More rich than are Arabian drugs,

That my soul scents its life and wakes

The body up beneath its perfumed rugs.

Such is the Muse, the heavenly maid,

The star that guides our mortal course,

Which shows where life's true kernel 's laid,

Its wheat's fine flour, and its undying force.

She with one breath attunes the spheres,

And also my poor human heart,

With one impulse propels the years

Around, and gives my throbbing pulse its start.

I will not doubt for evermore,

Nor falter from a steadfast faith,

For though the system be turned o'er,

God takes not back the word which once he saith.

I will, then, trust the love untold

Which not my worth nor want has bought,

Which wooed me young, and wooes me old,

And to this evening hath me brought.

My memory I'll educate

To know the one historic truth,