Peals out a cheerful song.
It is not only in the rose,
It is not only in the bird,

Not only where the rainbow glows,
Nor in the song of woman heard,
But in the darkest, meanest things
There alway, alway something sings.
'T is not in the high stars alone,
Nor in the cups of budding flowers,
Nor in the red-breast's mellow tone,
Nor in the bow that smiles in showers,
But in the mud and scum of things
There alway, alway something sings.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

MY HEART LEAPS UP WHEN I BEHOLD

Μ
MYA rainbow in the sky:

Y heart leaps up when I behold

So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man:
So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man

And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

William Wordsworth

PASSAGE TO INDIA

VAST Rondure, swimming in space!

Cover'd all over with visible power and beauty!

Alternate light and day, and the teeming spiritual

darkness;

Unspeakable, high processions of sun and moon, and countless stars, above;

Below, the manifold grass and waters, animals, mountains, trees;

With inscrutable purpose - some hidden, prophetic intention;

Now, first, it seems, my thought begins to span thee.

O we can wait no longer!
We too take ship, O soul!

Joyous, we too launch out on trackless seas! Fearless, for unknown shores, on waves of ecstasy to sail,

Amid the wafting winds (thou pressing me to thee, I thee to me, O soul),

Caroling free

singing our song of God,

Chanting our chant of pleasant exploration.

With laugh, and many a kiss,

(Let others deprecate - let others weep for sin, remorse, humiliation;)

O soul, thou pleasest me - I thee.

Ah, more than any priest, O soul, we too believe in God;

But with the mystery of God we dare not dally.

O soul, thou pleasest me - I thee;
Sailing these seas, or on

the night,

the hills, or waking in

Thoughts, silent thoughts, of Time, and Space, and Death, like waters flowing,

Bear me, indeed, as through the regions infinite, Whose air I breathe, whose ripples hear - lave me all over;

Bathe me, O God, in thee-mounting to thee,
I and my soul to range in range of thee.

O Thou transcendent!

Nameless the fibre and the breath!

Light of the light — shedding forth universes thou centre of them!

Thou mightier centre of the true, the good, the

(O pensive soul of me! O thirst unsatisfied!

waitest not there?

Waitest not haply for us, somewhere there, the Comrade perfect?)

Thou pulse! thou motive of the stars, suns, systems,

That, circling, move in order, safe, harmonious,
Athwart the shapeless vastnesses of space!
How should I think-how breathe a single
breath-how speak - if, out of myself,
I could not launch, to those, superior universes?

Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God,

At Nature and its wonders, Time and Space and Death,

But that I, turning, call to thee, O soul, thou ac

tual Me,

And lo! thou gently masterest the orbs,

Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death,
And fillest, swellest full, the vastnesses of Space.

Greater than stars or suns,

Bounding, O soul, thou journeyest forth;

- What love, than thine and ours could wider amplify?

What aspirations, wishes, outvie thine and ours, O soul?

What dreams of the ideal? what plans of purity, perfection, strength?

What cheerful willingness, for others' sake, to give up all?

For others' sake to suffer all?

Reckoning ahead, O soul, when thou, the time achiev❜d,

(The seas all cross'd, weather'd the capes, the voyage done,)

Surrounded, copest, frontest God, yieldest, the aim attain'd,

As, fill'd with friendship, love complete, the Elder Brother found,

The Younger melts in fondness in his arms.

Passage to more than India!

Are thy wings plumed indeed for such far flights? O Soul, voyagest thou indeed on voyages like these?

Disportest thou on waters such as these?

Soundest below the Sanscrit and the Vedas?
Then have thy bent unleash'd.

Passage to you, your shores, ye aged fierce enigmas!

Passage to you, to mastership of you, ye strangling problems!

You, strew'd with the wrecks of skeletons, that, living, never reach'd you.

Passage to more than India!

O secret of the earth and sky!

Of you, O waters of the sea! O winding creeks

and rivers!

Of you, O woods and fields! Of you, strong mountains of my land!

Of you, O prairies! Of you, gray rocks!

O morning red! O clouds! O rain and snows! O day and night, passage to you!

O sun and moon, and all you stars! Sirius and Jupiter!

Passage to you!

Passage - immediate passage! the blood burns in my veins !

Away, O soul! hoist instantly the anchor!

Cut the hawsers haul out-shake out every

sail!

Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough?

Have we not grovell'd here long enough, eating and drinking like mere brutes?

Have we not darken'd and dazed ourselves with books long enough?

Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only! Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;

For we are bound where mariner has not yet Idared to go,

And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

O my brave soul!

O farther, farther sail!

O daring joy, but safe!

seas of God?

Are they not all the

O farther, farther, farther sail!

Walt Whitman