The center of this world,
The face of nature,
The site of human life,
Some sure foundation
And nucleus of a nation–
At least a private station.
We twain would walk together
Through every weather,
And see this aged nature,
Go with a bending stature.
Henry David Thoreau
Great Friend
By death's favor
Here lies the engraver
And now I think o't
Where lies he not?
If the archangel look but where he lies
He ne'er will get translated to the skies.
Henry David Thoreau
Epitaph on an Engraver
And I wandered forth o'er the steamy earth,
And gazed at the mellow sky,
But never before from the hour of my birth
Had I wandered so thoughtfully
For never before was the earth so still,
And never so mild was the sky,
The rivers, the fields, the woods, and the hill,
Seemed to heave an audible sigh.
Henry David Thoreau
The Bluebirds
Such water do the gods distill
And pour down every hill
For their new England men.
A draught of this wild water bring
And I will never taste the spring
Of Helicon again.
But yesterday in dew it fell
This morn its streams began to swell
and with the sun it downward flowd
So fresh it hardly knew its road.
Henry David Thoreau
The Earth
The sun may set, the silver moon many rise,
But my unresting steed holds on his way.
He is far going. Plants grow and rivers run;
Henry David Thoreau
Life
What can ye give which I have not?
What can ye take which I have got?
Can ye defend the dangerless?
Can ye inherit nakedness?
To all true wants times ear is deaf,
Penurious states lend no relief
Out of their pelf—
But a free soul—thank God—
Can help itself.
Henry David Thoreau
Independence
So in my darkest hour my senses seem
To catch from her Acropolis a gleam,
Greece who am I that should remember thee?
Thy Marathon and thy Thermopylae
Is my life vulgar my fate mean
Which on such golden memories can lean?
Henry David Thoreau
Greece
Strange that so many fickle gods, as fickle as the weather,
Throughout Dame Natures provinces should always pull
together.
Henry David Thoreau
Walden
Where canst thou prevail?
If you love not
Your own land most,
You'll find nothing lovely
Upon a distant coast.
If you love not
The latest sunset,
What is there in pictures
Or old gems set?
Henry David Thoreau
The Hero
experienced river
Hast thou flown for ever?
Souhegan soundeth old
But the half is not told.
What names hast thou borne
In the ages far gone?
When the Xanthus and Meander
Commenced to wander –
Eer the brown bear hunted
On thy forest floor
Or nature had planted
The pines by thy shore.
Henry David Thoreau
Rumors From an Aeolian Harp
The loudest sound that burdens here the breeze
Is the wood's whisper; 'tis when we choose to list
Audible sound, and when we list not,
It is calm profound. Tongues were provided
But to vex the ear with superficial thoughts.
When deeper thoughts upswell, the jarring discord
Of harsh speech is hushed, and senses seem
As little as may be to share the extacy.
Henry David Thoreau
Cliffs
—With cunning plates the polished leaves were decked,
Each one a window to the poet's world,
So rich a prospect that you might suspect
In that small space all paradise unfurled.
It was a right delightful road to go,
marching through pastures of such fair herbage,
O'er hill and dale it lead, and to and fro,
From bard to bard, making an easy stage.
Henry David Thoreau
The "Book of Gems"
I am all sere & yellow,
And to my core mellow.
The mast is dropping within my woods
The winter is lurking within my moods
And the rustling of the withered leaf
Is the constant music of my grief,
My gay colored grief,
My autumnal relief.
Henry David Thoreau
Godfrey of Boulogne
So have I seen one yellow leaf
amid the glossy leaves of June,
Which pensive hung, though not with grief,
Like some fair flower, it had changed so soon.
I scent my med'cine from afar,
Where the rude simpler of the year
October leads to rustling war,
And strews his honors on the summer's bier.
Henry David Thoreau
Inspiration
Wave upon wave a mellower air
Flows over all the region,
As if there were some tincture there
Of ripeness caught from the long summer's sun.
Henry David Thoreau
The Fall of the Leaf
He Knows no change who knows the true,
And on it keeps his eye,
Who always still the unseen doth view;
Only the false & the apparent die.
Things change, but change not far
From what they are not but to what they are,
Or rather 'tis our ignorance that dies;
Forever lives the knowledge of the wise.
Henry David Thoreau
The Just Made Perfect