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In writing my concluding lecture I had to aim so much at simplification that I fear that my general philosophic position received so scant a statement as hardly to be intelligible to some of my readers. I therefore add this epilogue, which must also be so brie...

1876, ’77.—I FIND the woods in mid-May and early June my best places for composition.1 Seated on logs or stumps there, or resting on rails, nearly all the following memoranda have been jotted down. Wherever I go, indeed, winter or summer, city or country, alon...

AS every man has his hobby-liking, mine is for a real farm-lane fenced by old chestnut-rails gray-green with dabs of moss and lichen, copious weeds and briers growing in spots athwart the heaps of stray-pick’d stones at the fence bases—irregular paths worn bet...

SO, still sauntering on, to the spring under the willows—musical as soft clinking glasses—pouring a sizeable stream, thick as my neck, pure and clear, out from its vent where the bank arches over like a great brown shaggy eyebrow or mouth-roof—gurgling, gurgli...

AWAY then to loosen, to unstring the divine bow, so tense, so long. Away, from curtain, carpet, sofa, book—from “society”—from city house, street, and modern improvements and luxuries—away to the primitive winding, aforementioned wooded creek, with its untrimm...

DID you ever chance to hear the midnight flight of birds passing through the air and darkness overhead, in countless armies, changing their early or late summer habitat? It is something not to be forgotten. A friend called me up just after 12 last night to mar...

MAY-MONTH—month of swarming, singing, mating birds—the bumble-bee month—month of the flowering lilac—(and then my own birth-month.) As I jot this paragraph, I am out just after sunrise, and down towards the creek. The lights, perfumes, melodies—the blue birds,...

AS I journey’d to-day in a light wagon ten or twelve miles through the country, nothing pleas’d me more, in their homely beauty and novelty (I had either never seen the little things to such advantage, or had never noticed them before) than that peculiar fruit...

June 10th.—AS I write, 5 1/2 P. M., here by the creek, nothing can exceed the quiet splendor and freshness around me. We had a heavy shower, with brief thunder and lightning, in the middle of the day; and since, overhead, one of those not uncommon yet indescri...

Published in 1792, ‘On the mystical poetry of the Persians and Hindus’ is an essay describing Oriental mystical poetry for Western readers. It emphasises the contemporary relevance of the allegorical tradition within both Muslim and Hindu cultures as well as t...

  Sweet maid, if thou wouldst charm my sight;  And, bid these arms thy neck infold;  That rosy cheek, that lily hand,  Would give thy poet more delight  Than all Bocara's vaunted gold,  Than all the gems of Samarcand.  Boy! let yon liquid ruby flow,  And bid t...

  With cheeks where eternal paradise bloom'd,  Sweet Laili the soul of Kais had consum'd.  Transported her heavenly graces he view'd:  Of slumber no more he thought, nor of food.  Love rais'd in their glowing bosoms his throne,  Adopting the chosen pair as his...

  Deck'd with fresh garlands like a rural bride,  And with the crimson streamer's waving pride,  A wanton bark was floating o'er the main;  And seem'd with scorn, to view the azure plain:  Smooth were the waves; and scarce a whispering gale  Fann'd with his g...

  What pow'r, beyond all pow'rs elate,  Sustains this universal frame?  'Tis not nature, 'tis not fate,  'Tis not the dance of atoms blind,  Ethereal space, or subtile flame;  No; 'tis one vast eternal mind,  Too sacred for an earthly name.  He forms, pervades...

  While sad suspense and chill delay     Bereave my wounded soul of rest,  New hopes, new fears, from day to day,     By turns assail my lab'ring breast.  My heart, which ardent love consumes,     Throbs with each agonizing thought;  So flutters with entangled...

Introduction As every enquiry, which regards religion, is of the utmost importance, there are two questions in particular, which challenge our attention, to wit, that concerning its foundation in reason, and that concerning its origin in human nature. Happily...

Section I. Some objects produce immediately an agreeable sensation, by the original structure of our organs, and are thence denominated Good; as others, from their immediate disagreeable sensation, acquire the appellation of Evil. Thus moderate warmth is agre...

It seems an unaccountable pleasure, which the spectators of a well-wrote tragedy receive from sorrow, terror, anxiety, and other passions, which are in themselves disagreeable and uneasy. The more they are touched and affected, the more are they delighted with...