Sublime

How happy is the little stone That rambles in the road alone, And doesn’t care about careers, And exigencies never fears; Whose coat of elemental brown A passing universe put on; And independent as the sun, Associates or glows alone, Fulfilling absolute decree In casual simplicity.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I

I thought often and seriously of picking huckleberries; that surely I could do, and its small profits might suffice—for my greatest skill has been to want but little—so little capital it required, so little distraction from my wonted moods, I foolishly thought. While my acquaintances went unhesitatingly into trade or the professions, I contemplated

The laborer's day ends with the going down of the sun, and he is then free to devote himself to his chosen pursuit, independent of his

As T. S. Eliot wrote, in a brilliant and painstaking way: I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope, For hope would be hope for the wrong thing: wait without love for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.