Each and All

I, too, can’t change
The hungry truth of nature’s law, That there exists a universal expressing
Of one in the whole and the whole
In one—an inward sound
By which all beauty is incited;
Thankful that I am here
Alive and sustained within.

The mountain that looms
Within my sight.
The gleaming river’s course,
The sky that assuages all seas
When the sun rests and shadows
Are rich with distant warmth—
Holy, holy, this existence
As I walk in gratitude,
The whole of Nature covers me.

So beauty speaks through
The gentlest of the breath
As the wings of a bird
That grazes the sky;
One’s heart beats with the living world,
And there is beauty near to die for.

• Ralph Waldo Emerson