Emerson's Optimism

"In the woods we return to reason and faith.
There I feel that nothing can befal me in life,
--no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes)
which nature cannot repair.

Standing on the bare ground,
-- my head bathed by the blithe air,
and uplifted into infinite space,
--all mean egotism vanishes.

I become a transparent eye-ball.
I am nothing.
I see all.
The currents of Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God."


(Nature, p 10, in Collected Works vol 1, Ferguson, ed.)


http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Reading_Revolutions/Emerson.html