American Literature Selected Poems of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Grace

How much, preventing God! How much I owe
To the defenses thou hast round me set:
Example, custom, fear, occasion slow,--
These scorned bondmen were my parapet.
I dare not peep over this parapet,
To gauge with glance the roaring gulf below,
The depths of sin to which I had descended,
Had not these me against myself defended.