At Such A Moment

Donovan / Joan Baez: Colours

If I were to choose
a time for a friend
to make a passing visit
to this world
for the first time,
in the full possession
of all his faculties,
perchance it would be
at a moment
when the sun
was setting with
the splendor in the west,
his light reflected
far and wide
through the clarified air
after a rain,
and a brilliant rainbow,
as now, o’erarching
the eastern sky.
Would he be likely
to think this

a vulgar place to live,
where one would
weary of existence,
and be compelled
to devote his life
to frivolity
and dissipation?
If a man traveling
from world to world
were to pass
through this world
at such a moment,
would he not
be tempted
to take up
his abode here?

--Henry David Thoreau