1. READ As you read lines 1 -20, begin to collect and cite evidence. ? Underline metaphorical phrases,
? Circle language that Emerson uses to describe the woods. ? In the margin, explain what event causes the author "perfect exhilaration" (lines 2-5).

from Nature

Nature is a setting that fits equally well a comic or a mourning piece. In good health, the air is a cordial of incredible virtue. Crossing a bare common in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear. In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods, we return to Q reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, - no disgrace. no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, - my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, - all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye ball; 1 am nothing; i see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintances, - master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance. I am the lover of uncontained and immortal

2. Reread lines 5-15 how is a man “always a child” in the woods? Which sentence acts as a central idea and best supports this metaphor

3. •Underline the topic sentence Emerson uses to introduce each paragraph

• explain what the “colors of the spirit” refers to (line 32)

• circle examples of personification