It was her stern necessity: all things Are of one pattern made; bird, beast, and flower, Deceive us, seeming to be many things, And are but one. Beheld far off, they differ As God and devil; bring them to the mind, They dull its edge with their monotony.
ATTRIBUTION:
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. “Xenophanes,” Poems (1847).
