Today's Sermon

from MY GARDENS

If I could put my woods in song,

And tell what's there enjoyed,

All men would to my gardens throng,

And leave the cities void.

In my plot no tulips blow, --

Snow-loving pines and oaks instead;

And rank the savage maples grow

From spring's faint flush to autumn red.

My garden is a forest ledge

Which older forests bound;

The banks slope down to the blue lake-edge,

Then plunge to depths profound.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803 - 1882