Compensation: On The Ides Of August

Compensation On The Ides Of August Six thirty AM: naked in the picture window, pleased by the rising sun — but soon I must drew the shades for you pay for the light with heat and by noon the room would be too hot. Nature, Emerson says, is not given free and like any pleasure payed for by protecting it or restraint or other compensation. Afternoon, reading on a bench by the pond an old oak substitutes for the shades. a tree which isn't mine in the sense of being me but I protect, care for, as I guard and care for my home. As for my pleasure in rising early to stand naked and dress in the morning sun, where is the payment, the compensation Emerson claims must be due to even this if it gives pleasure? It must be that I am here alone — I mean I should have been a sufficiently different me. to have brought thee,whoever you are, to be here with me in Nature's blessed light.