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Ralph Waldo Emerson
Xenophanes(p.174)
By fate, not option, frugal Nature gave
One scent to hyson and to wall-flower,
One sound to pine-groves and to waterfalls,
One aspect to the desert and the lake.
It was her stern necessity: all things
Are of one pattern made; bird, beast and flower,
Song, picture, form, space, thought and character
Deceive us, seeming to be many things,
And are but one. Beheld far off, they part
As God and devil; bring them to the mind,
They dull its edge with their monotony.
To know one element, explore another,
And in the second reappears the first.
The specious panorama of a year
But multiplies the image of a day,—
A belt of mirrors round a taper's flame;
And universal Nature, through her vast
And crowded whole, an infinite paroquet,
Repeats one note.
from my old Emerson's Poems book (I don't know the date because the title page is missing,
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An Introduction to Nature
Excerpt from Lewis Leary's Ralph Waldo Emerson: An Interpretive Essay.
"The best way to get at Emerson is to come at him all at once, in the ninety-five pages of his little book called Nature, issued anonymously in 1836, which contains the compressed totality of all that he would subsequently patiently reveal. Revelation rather than logic was the instrument used by Emerson to delve toward truth. It was not his intention to create a philosophy or to codify thought. He distrusted logical arguments as man-made, and therefore inadequate because they are imperfect as man is imperfect. Neither philosopher nor conventional moralist, Emerson, it cannot be said too often, was first and last an artist who attempted to create a vision of the world and man's place in it. What is the world? What is nature which lies all about us? What is the refulgent beauty of nature that draws man out of himself, to quietness and calm, or to resolution? What are the mysteries of nature that inspired men resolve by conquering time or space through the discovery of such things as the telegraph, or the harnessing of waterpower and steam, or rocketing to the moon?
For the rest the Great site just below here on Emerson's Nature
tick here;
http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/nature.html
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Additionally there is a great reprint; tick the link below. I didn't see the above poem 'Xenophanes' when I briefly checked the contents.
It is a book of Emerson's Poems, but not exactly like mine. It may just be a bit rearranged (this is basically for my reference)excuse moi. I will have to research to be sure.
The link below is an entire Google ebook on Emerson Poems!
http://books.google.com/books?id=sM7iAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=emerson's+poems&source=bl&ots=OScyEFC-jr&sig=0RcsXP8wOM1PyDCuI_hr88bQr1o&hl=en&ei=AQlZS-7QCpDgsQO2jdTFBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CCAQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=emerson's%20poems&f=false
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