When this world's pleasures for my soul sufficed,
Ere my heart's plummet sounded depths of pain,
I call on Reason to control my brain,
And scoffed at that old story of Christ.

But when o'er burning wastes my feet had trod,
And all my life was desolate with loss,
With bleeding hands I clung about the cross,
And cried aloud, 'Man needs a suffering God! '

Let us not talk philosophy, drop it, Jeanne.
So many words, so much paper, who can stand it.
I told you the truth about my distancing myself.
I've stopped worrying about my misshapen life.
It was no better and no worse than the usual human tragedies.

For over thirty years we have been waging our dispute
As we do now, on the island under the skies of the tropics.
We flee a downpour, in an instant the bright sun again,
And I grow dumb, dazzled by the emerald essence of the leaves.

We submerge in foam at the line of the surf,

I see the tall church steeples,
They reach so far, so far,
But the eyes of my heart see the world’s great mart,
Where the starving people are.

I hear the church bells ringing
Their chimes on the morning air;
But my soul’s sad ear is hurt to hear
The poor man’s cry of despair.

Thicker and thicker the churches,
Nearer and nearer the sky –
But alack for their creeds while the poor man’s needs
Grow deeper as years roll by.

The world has many seas, Mediterranean, Atlantic, but
here is the shore of the one ocean.
And here the heavy future hangs like a cloud; the
enormous scene; the enormous games preparing
Weigh on the water and strain the rock; the stage is
here, the play is conceived; the players are
not found.

I saw on the Sierras, up the Kaweah valley above the
Moro rock, the mountain redwoods
Like red towers on the slopes of snow; about their
bases grew a bushery of Christmas green,

Bed and bread are all I need
In my happy day;
Love of Nature is my creed,
Unto her I pray;
Sun and sky my spirit feed
On my happy way.
II
To no man I bow the head,
None may master me;
I will eat my crust of bread
Lauding liberty;
And upon my truckle bed
Glory to be free.
III
You who grab for sordid gold,
You who fight for fame,
Shiny dross your fingers hold,
Empty is your aim.
--Soon we fatten graveyard mould,

If any line that I ever penned,
Or any word I have spoken,
Has comforted heart of foe or friend -
In any way, why my life, I'll say,
Has reaped the reward of labour,
If aught I have said, or written, has made
Gladder the heart o' my neighbour.

If any deed that I ever did
Lightened a sad heart's sorrow,
If I have lifted a drooping lid
Up to the bright to-morrow,
Though the world knows not, nor gives me a thought,
Nor ever can know, nor praise me,
Yet still I shall say, to my heart alway,

Content, the false World's best disguise,
The search and faction of the Wise,
Is so abstruse and hid in night,
That, like that Fairy Red-cross Knight,
Who trech'rous Falshood for clear Truth had got,
Men think they have it when they have it not.

For Courts Content would gladly own,
But she ne're dwelt about a Throne:
And to be flatter'd, rich, and great,
Are things which do Mens senses cheat.
But grave Experience long since this did see,
Ambition and Content would ne're agree.

Some vainer would Content expect

Lett her parents then confesse
That they beleeve her happinesse,
Which now they question. Thinke as you
Lent her the world, Heaven lent her you:
And is it just then to complayne
When each hath but his owne againe?
Then thinke what both your glories are
In her preferment: for tis farre
Nobler to gett a Saint, and beare
A childe to Heaven than an Heyre
To a large Empire. Thinke beside
Shee dyde not yong, but livde a Bride.
Your best wishes for her good
Were but to see her well bestowde:
Was shee not so? Shee marryed to

How agreeable it is not to be touring Italy this summer,
wandering her cities and ascending her torrid hilltowns.
How much better to cruise these local, familiar streets,
fully grasping the meaning of every roadsign and billboard
and all the sudden hand gestures of my compatriots.

There are no abbeys here, no crumbling frescoes or famous
domes and there is no need to memorize a succession
of kings or tour the dripping corners of a dungeon.
No need to stand around a sarcophagus, see Napoleon's

'Attar began The Conference of the Birds (Mantiq al-tair) with an invocation praising the holy Creator in which he suggested that one must live a hundred lives to know oneself; but you must know God by the deity, not by yourself, for God opens the way, not human wisdom. 'Attar believed that God is beyond all human knowledge. The soul will manifest itself when the body is laid aside. One cannot gain spiritual knowledge without dying to all things. When the birds assemble, they wonder why they have no king.