The poem
At Great Pond the sun, rising, scrapes his orange breast on the thick pines, and down tumble a few orange feathers into the dark water. On the far shore a white bird is standing like a white candle --- or a man, in the distance, in the clasp of some meditation --- while all around me the lilies are breaking open again from the black cave of the night. Later, I will consider what I have seen --- what it could signify --- what words of adoration I might make of it, and to do this I will go indoors to my desk --- I will sit in my chair --- I will look back into the lost morning in which I am moving, now, like a swimmer, so smoothly, so peacefully, I am almost the lily --- almost the bird vanishing over the water on its sleeves of night.