Xenophan

Xenophanes

Ralph Waldo Emerson

(1803-1882)

By fate, not option, frugal Nature gave

One scent to hyson and to wall-flower,

One sound to pine-groves and to waterfalls,

One aspect to the desert and the lake.

It was her stern necessity: all things

Are of one pattern made; bird, beast, and flower,

Song, picture, form, space, thought and character

Deceive us, seeming to be many things,

And are but one element. Behold far off, they part

As God and devil: bring them to the mind

They dull its edge with their monotony.

To know one element, explore another,

And in the second reappears the first.

The specious panorama of a year

But multiplies the image of a day,--

A belt of mirrors round a taper's flame;

And universal Nature, through her vast

And crowded whole, an infinite paroquet*,

Repeats one note.

* “Paroquet” is an old spelling variant of “parakeet”.

Emerson is comparing “universal Nature” to an “infinite parakeet” that “repeats one note”.