How does Emerson feel about the ownership of nature?

Emerson
differentiates between the ownership of land and the ownership of the landscape of nature. He
writes as follows:

The charming landscape which I saw this
morning, is indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns this field, Locke
that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them owns the landscape. There is a property
in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet.
This is the best part of these men's farms, yet to this their warranty-deeds give no
title.

Different people may own this or that farm or
woodland and use it to grow crops or trees and turn a profit. However, it is the poetthe
visionarywho in another way owns the landscape. The poet is the one who can perceive the beauty,
splendor, and spiritual qualities of nature spread out before him and integrate these qualities
into one whole. He may not own the title to land he sees, but he possesses a special insight
into the landscape that the literal owners may not.

To the poet, nature
offers a special delight and harmony. He feels a kinship with it, as if he and nature are in
communion. His mood is reflected, too, in how he perceives nature at any particular time, for
example reflecting sadness when disaster has hit the poet:

always wears the colors of the spirit. To a man laboring under calamity, the heat of
his own fire hath sadness in it.

This kinship, to
Emerson, is a very special and potent form of ownership, an ownership based on spiritual
affinity.