I of the Earth am Earthly,
And Speaketh of the Earth²
To one who in the Love of Nature
Holds Communion with her visible
Forms, she speaks various Language³
I see the Secrets of the making of the
Best persons: it is to grow in the Open
Air and to Eat and Sleep with the Earth⁴
Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter Mountain-Tops with sovereign eye,
Kiss with golden face the Meadows Green,
Gild pale Streams with Heavenly Alchemy⁵
Inebriate of Air am I – and Debauchee of Dew⁶
I Yearn to live as Nature lives: Surrendering All⁷
All arts lose virtue against the Essential Reality
Of Creatures going about their business among
The equally earnest Elements of Nature⁸
The Inner – what is it? Sky Intensified,
Hurled through with Bird and Deep
From the Winds of Homecoming⁹
I am a thousand Winds that blow,
I am the diamond Glints on snow,
I am the Sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle Autumn Rain¹⁰
¹ Omar Khayyám tr. Edward Fitzgerald, Rubáiyát
² John 3:31 (King James)
³ William Cullen Bryant, Thanatopsis
⁴ Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road
⁵ William Shakespeare, Sonnet XXXIII
⁶ Emily Dickinson, I Taste a Liquor
⁷ Bell Hooks, Appalachian Elegy 43
⁸ Robinson Jeffers, Boats in a Fog
⁹ Rainer Maria Rilke tr. original, Ah, Not To Be Cut Off
¹⁰ Clare Harner, Immortality