The Problem by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Redford LibraVox.org by Alan Davis Drake. I like a church. I like a cowl. I love a prophet of the soul.
And on my heart, monastic aisles, fall like sweet strains, or a pence of smile. Yet not for all his faith can see, would I that cowl churchmen be. What should the rest on him allure? Which I could not on me endure.
Not from a vain or shallow thought his awful Joe V. Young vidius brought. Never from lips of cunning fell the chilling Delphic Oracle. Out from the heart of nature rolled the burdens of the Bible old.
The litanies of nations came, like the volcanoes tongue of flame. Up from the burning core below, the canticles of love and woe, the hand that rounded Peter's dome and growing the aisles of Christian Rome. Rought in a sad sincerity, himself from God he could not free. He builded better than he knew.
The conscious stone to beauty grew. How is thou what woe beyond wood-birds' nest of leaves and feathers from her breast? Or how the fish outbuilt her shell, painting with morn each annual cell? Or how the sacred pine tree adds to her own leaves, new myriads?
Such and so grew these holy piles, whilst love and terror lay the tiles. Earth proudly wears the pantheon, as the best gem upon her zone. And morning oaps with haste her lids to gaze upon the pyramids. Or England's abbeys bend the sky, as on its friends with kindred eye.
For, out of thought's interior sphere, these wonders rose to upper air. And nature gladly gave them place, adopted them into her race, and granted them an equal date with Andes and with Ararat. These temples grew as grows the grass. Art might obey, but not surpass.
The passive master lent his hand to the vast soul that or him planned. And the same power that reared the shrine, bestowed the tribes that dealt with in. Ever the fiery Pentecost girds with one flame, the campless host, traces the heart through the chanting choirs, and through the priest the mind inspires. The word unto the prophet spoken was writ on tables yet unbroken.
The word by seers or sibbles told, in groves of oak or faines of gold, still floats upon the morning wind, still whispers to the willing mind. One accent of the holy ghost, the heedless world, hath never lost. I know what say the father's wise. The book itself beform thee lies, old crease so stone best augustine, and he who blint both in his line.
The younger golden lips, or our minds, tailor the shakespeare of divines, his words were music in my ear. I see his cowled portrait dear. And yet, for all his faith could see, I would not the good bishop be. And a poem this recording is in the public domain.