I.
Good by, proud world! I'm going home;
Thou'rt not my friend, and I'm not thine.
Long through the weary crowds I roam,
A river-ark on the ocean brine.
Long I've been tossed like the driven foam
And now, proud world, I'm going home.
II.
Good by to Flattery's fawning face;
To Grandeur, with his wise grimace;
To upstart Wealth's averted eye;
To supple Office, low and high;
To crowded halls, to court and street;
To frozen hearts and hasting feet;
To those who go and those who come;
Good by, proud world! I'm going home.
III.
I am going to my own hearthstone,
Bosomed in yon green hills alone—
A secret nook in a pleasant land,
Whose groves the frolic fairies planned,—
Where arches green, the livelong day,
Echo the blackbird's roundelay,
And vulgar feet have never trod,—
A spot that is sacred to thought and God.
IV.
O, when I am safe in my sylvan home,
I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome;
And when I am stretched beneath the pines
Where the evening star so holy shines,
I laugh at the lore and the pride of man,
At the sophist schools, and the learned clan;
For what are they all, in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet?
Ralph Waldo Emerson.