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find I incorporate gneiss, coal, long-threaded moss, fruits, grains, esculent roots, And am stucco'd with quadrupeds and birds all over, And have distanced what is behind me for good reasons, But call any thing back again when I desire it. In vain the speeding or shyness, In vain the plutonic rocks send their old heat against my approach, In vain the mastodon retreats beneath its own powder'd bones, In vain objects stand leagues off and assume manifold shapes, In vain the ocean settling in hollows and the great monsters lying low, In vain the buzzard houses herself with the sky, In vain the snake slides through the creepers and logs, In vain the elk takes to the inner passes of the woods, In vain the razor-bill'd auk sails far north to Labrador, I follow quickly, I ascend to the nest in the fissure of the cliff. 32 I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain'd, I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition, Revista Letras Fafibe, Bebedouro-SP, 4 (1), 2014. 82 They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth. So they show their relations to me and I accept them, They bring me tokens of myself, they evince them…

olhos de crente talvez possamos compreender como o homem comum pôde se liberta r da sua impotência e da sua miséria para ser contempla - do (ao menos temporariamente) com qualidades quase sobre-humanas. Muitas vezes, uma convicção assim pode sustentá-lo por longo tempo e dar um certo estilo à sua vida. Poderá até mesmo caracterizar uma sociedade inteira. Temos um excepcional exemplo disto nos mistérios de Eleusis -, que foram por fim extintos no começo do século VII da era…