I cannot say to any person what I hear — I cannot say it to
    myself — it is very wonderful.

It is no small matter, this round and delicious globe moving
    so exactly in its orbit for ever and ever, without one jolt
    or the untruth of a single second,
I do not think it was made in six days, nor in ten thousand years,
    nor ten billions of years,
Nor plann'd and built one thing after another as an architect
    plans and builds a house.

I do not think seventy years is the time of a man or woman,
Nor that seventy millions of years is the time of a man or
    woman,
Nor that years will ever stop the existence of me, or any one
    else.

Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? as every one is
    immortal;
I know it is wonderful, but my eyesight is equally wonderful,
    and how I was conceived in my mother's womb is
    equally wonderful,
And pass'd from a babe in the creeping trance of a couple of
    summers and winters to articulate and walk — all this is
    equally wonderful.

And that my soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each
    other without ever seeing each other, and never perhaps
    to see each other, is every bit as wonderful.

And that I can think such thoughts as these is just as wonderful,
And that I can remind you, and you think them and know
    them to be true, is just as wonderful.
And that the moon spins round the earth and on with the
    earth, is equally wonderful,
And that they balance themselves with the sun and stars is
    equally wonderful.

1855 1867

TESTS

All submit to them where they sit, inner, secure,
    unapproachable to analysis in the soul,
Not traditions, not the outer authorities are the judges,
They are the judges of outer authorities and of all traditions,
They corroborate as they go only whatever corroborates themselves,
     and touches themselves;
For all that, they have it forever in themselves to corroborate
    far and near without one exception.

1860 1860

THE TORCH

On my Northwest coast in the midst of the night a fishermen's
     group stands watching,
Out on the lake that expands before them, others are
    spearing salmon,
The canoe, a dim shadowy thing, moves across the black water,
Bearing a torch ablaze at the prow.

1865 1867

O STAR OF FRANCE

1870-71

O star of France,
The brightness of thy hope and strength and fame,
Like some proud ship that led the fleet so long,
Beseems to-day a wreck driven by the gale, a mastless hulk,
And 'mid its teeming madden'd half-drown'd crowds,
Nor helm nor helmsman.

Dim smitten star,
Orb not of France alone, pale symbol of my soul, its dearest
    hopes,
The struggle and the daring, rage divine for liberty,
Of aspirations toward the far ideal, enthusiast's dreams of
    brotherhood,
Of terror to the tyrant and the priest.

Star crucified — by traitors sold,
Star panting o'er a land of death, heroic land,
Strange, passionate, mocking, frivolous land.