Conscience by Henry David Thoreau

Conscience
by Henry David Thoreau


Conscience is instinct bred in the house,
Feeling and Thinking propagate the sin
By an unnatural breeding in and in.
I say, Turn it out doors,
Into the moors.
I love a life whose plot is simple,
And does not thicken with every pimple,
A soul so sound no sickly conscience binds it,
That makes the universe no worse than 't finds it.
I love an earnest soul,
Whose mighty joy and sorrow
Are not drowned in a bowl,
And brought to life to-morrow;
That lives one tragedy,
And not seventy;
A conscience worth keeping;
Laughing not weeping;
A conscience wise and steady,
And forever ready;
Not changing with events,
Dealing in compliments;
A conscience exercised about
Large things, where one may doubt.
I love a soul not all of wood,
Predestinated to be good,
But true to the backbone
Unto itself alone,
And false to none;
Born to its own affairs,
Its own joys and own cares;
By whom the work which God begun
Is finished, and not undone;
Taken up where he left off,
Whether to worship or to scoff;
If not good, why then evil,
If not good god, good devil.
Goodness! you hypocrite, come out of that,
Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.
I have no patience towards
Such conscientious cowards.
Give me simple laboring folk,
Who love their work,
Whose virtue is song
To cheer God along. 

I feel a true kinship to this poem. A link to learn more is here. http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/thoreau/

Tall Ambrosia By Henry David Thoreau

Tall Ambrosia

BY HENRY DAVID THOREAU

Among the signs of autumn I perceive

The Roman wormwood (called by learned men

Ambrosia elatior, food for gods,—

For to impartial science the humblest weed

Is as immortal once as the proudest flower—)

Sprinkles its yellow dust over my shoes

As I cross the now neglected garden.

—We trample under foot the food of gods

And spill their nectar in each drop of dew—

My honest shoes, fast friends that never stray

Far from my couch, thus powdered, countryfied,

Bearing many a mile the marks of their adventure,

At the post-house disgrace the Gallic gloss

Of those well dressed ones who no morning dew

Nor Roman wormwood ever have been through,

Who never walk but are transported rather—

For what old crime of theirs I do not gather.

I enjoy reading this. Simple but more. A link to read more is here. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/henry-david-thoreau