I Become a Transparent Eyeball

Taken from "Nature"
Written by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Crossing a bare common in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky,
    without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have
    enjoyed a perfect exhilaration.
I am glad to the brink of fear.
In the woods, too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at
    what period soever of life is always a child.
In the woods is perpetual youth.
Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial
    festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them
    in a thousand years.
In the woods, we return to reason and faith.
There I feel that nothing can befall 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 eyeball;
    I am nothing;
        I see all;
            the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me;
                I am part or parcel of God.

The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be
    brothers, to be acquaintances, master of servant, is then a trifle and a
    disturbance.
I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty.
In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets
    or villages.
In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon,
    man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.

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