Ralph Waldo Emerson - A Letter lyrics

Dear brother, would you know the life, Please God, that I would lead? On the first wheels that quit this weary town Over yon western bridges I would ride And with a cheerful benison forsake Each street and spire and roof, incontinent. Then would I seek where God might guide my steps, Deep in a woodland tract, a sunny farm, Amid the mountain counties, Hants, Franklin, Berks, Where down the rock ravine a river roars, Even from a brook, and where old woods Not tamed and cleared cumber the ground With their centennial wrecks. Find me a slope where I can feel the sun And mark the rising of the early stars. There will I bring my books,—my household gods, The reliquaries of my dead saint, and dwell In the sweet odor of her memory. Then in the uncouth solitude unlock My stock of art, plant dials in the gra**, Hang in the air a bright thermometer And aim a telescope at the inviolate sun. CHARDON ST., BOSTON, 1831. Day by day returns The everlasting sun, Replenishing material urns With God's unspared donation; But the day of day, The orb within the mind, Creating fair and good alway, Shines not as once it shined. * * * Vast the realm of Being is, In the waste one nook is his; Whatsoever hap befalls In his vision's narrow walls He is here to testify. 1831.