…HUMANITY is great;

An ounce of common, ugly, human dust, 

An artizan’s palm, or a peasant’s brow, 

Unsmooth, ignoble, save to me and God, 

Than track old Nilus to his silver roots.

…set it down

As weakness, – strength by no means.

We, we are shocked at Nature’s falling off,

We dare to shrink back from her warts and blains;

We will not, when she sneezes, look at her 

Not even to say, ‘God bless her.’   That’s our wrong,

For that she will not trust us often with 

Her larger sense of beauty and desire, 

But tethers us to a lily or a rose 

And bids us diet on the dew inside, 

Left ignorant that the hungry beggar-boy. .

Bears yet a breastful of a fellow-world

To this world un-disparaged, un-despoiled,

And (while we scorn him for a flower or two,

As being, Heaven help us, less poetical)

Contains himself both flower and firmament, 

And surging seas and aspectable stars, 

And all that we would push him out of sight 

In order to see nearer.   Let us pray

God’s grace to keep God’s image in repute.

…He who feels contempt

For any living thing, hath faculties

That he hath never used, and thought with him 

Is in its infancy.