Ralph Waldo Emerson — The Apology

Think me not unkind and rude          That I walk alone in grove and glen; I go to the god of the wood         To fetch his word to men. Tax not my sloth that I         Fold my arms beside the brook; Each cloud that floated in the sky         Writes a letter in my book. Chide me not, laborious band,         For the idle flowers I brought; Every aster in my hand         Goes home loaded with a thought. There was never mystery         But 'tis figured in the flowers; Was never secret history         But birds tell it in the bowers. One harvest from thy field         Homeward brought the oxen strong; A second crop thine acres yield,         Which I gather in a song.