Simplicity is the glory of expression.

The American bards shall be marked for generosity and affection and for encouraging competitors… . The great poets are also to be known by the absence in them of tricks and by the justification of perfect personal candor… . How beautiful is candor! All faults may be forgiven of him who has perfect candor.

There can be no theory of any account unless it corroborate with the theory of the earth.

Sure as the most certain sure .... plumb in the uprights, well entreated, braced in the beams, Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical, I and this mystery we stand. Clear and sweet is my soul .... and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul, Lack one lacks both .... and the unseen is proved by the seen Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn. To elaborate is no avail .... Learned and unlearned feel that it is so.

The greatest country, the richest country, is not that which has the most capitalists, monopolists, immense grabbings, vast fortunes, with its sad, sad soil of extreme, degrading, damning poverty, but the land in which there are the most homesteads, freeholds -- where wealth does not show such contrasts high and low, where all men have enough -- a modest living- and no man is made possessor beyond the sane and beautiful necessities.

O the joy of the strong-brawn'd fighter, towering in the arena in perfect condition, conscious of power, thirsting to meet his opponent.

The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,
The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss
or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,
Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news,
the fitful events;
These come to me days and nights and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself.

A morning glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.

I exist as I am, that is enough.

Seeing, hearing and feeling are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.

Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt, Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee, In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night, Kindling a fire and broiling the fresh-kill'd game, Falling asleep on the gather'd leaves with my dog and gun by my side.

The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer,
I know they are very well where they are,
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.

O the joy of my spirit -- it is uncaged -- it darts like lightning! It is not enough to have this globe or a certain time, I will have thousands of globes and all time.

The mother condemned for a witch and burnt with dry

wood, and her children gazing on;

The hounded slave that flags in the race and leans by the

fence, blowing and covered with sweat,

The twinges that sting like needles his legs and neck,

The murderous buckshot and the bullets,

All these I feel or am.

Why who makes much of a miracle? As to me I know nothing else but miracles, whether they be animals feeding in the fields, Or, birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air, Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright, Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring; These, with the rest, one and all, are to me, miracles.

I am given up by traitors;
I talk wildly ... I have lost my wits ... I and nobody else am the greatest traitor,
I went myself first to the headland ... my own hands carried me there.

Perhaps the efforts of the true poets, founders, religions, literatures, all ages, have been, and ever will be, our time and times to come, essentially the same -- to bring people back from their present strayings and sickly abstractions, to the costless, average, divine, original concrete.

O amazement of things-even the least particle!

So here I sit in the early candle-light of old age-I and my book-casting backward glances over out travel'd road.

We were together. I forget the rest.