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- What's the railroad to me?
- I never go to see
- Where it ends.
- It fills a few hollows,
- And makes banks for the swallows,
- It sets the sand a-blowing,
- And the blackberries a-growing.
- Henry David Thoreau

- They who prepare my evening meal below
- Carelessly hit the kettle as they go
- With tongs or shovel,
- And ringing round and round,
- Out of this hovel
- It makes an eastern temple by the sound.
- At first I thought a cow bell right at hand
- Mid birches sounded o'er the open land,
- Where I plucked flowers
- Many years ago,
- Spending midsummer hours
- With such secure delight they hardly seemed to flow.
- Henry David Thoreau

- On fields o'er which the reaper's hand has pass'd
- Lit by the harvest moon and autumn sun,
- My thoughts like stubble floating in the wind
- And of such fineness as October airs,
- There after harvest could I glean my life
- A richer harvest reaping without toil,
- And weaving gorgeous fancies at my will
- In subtler webs than finest summer haze.
- Henry David Thoreau

- Pray to what earth does this sweet cold belong,
- Which asks no duties and no conscience?
- The moon goes up by leaps, her cheerful path
- In some far summer stratum of the sky,
- While stars with their cold shine bedot her way.
- The fields gleam mildly back upon the sky,
- And far and near upon the leafless shrubs
- The snow dust still emits a silver light.
- Under the hedge, where drift banks are their screen,
- The titmice now pursue their downy dreams,
- As often in the sweltering summer nights
- The bee doth drop asleep in the flower cup,
- When evening overtakes him with his load.
- By the brooksides, in the still, genial night,
- The more adventurous wanderer may hear
- The crystals shoot and form, and winter slow
- Increase his rule by gentlest summer means.
- Henry David Thoreau

- Within the circuit of this plodding life
- There enter moments of an azure hue,
- Untarnished fair as is the violet
- Or anemone, when the spring stew them
- By some meandering rivulet, which make
- The best philosophy untrue that aims
- But to console man for his grievences.
- I have remembered when the winter came,
- High in my chamber in the frosty nights,
- When in the still light of the cheerful moon,
- On the every twig and rail and jutting spout,
- The icy spears were adding to their length
- Against the arrows of the coming sun,
- How in the shimmering noon of winter past
- Some unrecorded beam slanted across
- The upland pastures where the Johnwort grew;
- Or heard, amid the verdure of my mind,
- The bee's long smothered hum, on the blue flag
- Loitering amidst the mead; or busy rill,
- Which now through all its course stands still and dumb
- Its own memorial, - purling at its play
- Along the slopes, and through the meadows next,
- Until its youthful sound was hushed at last
- In the staid current of the lowland stream;
- Or seen the furrows shine but late upturned,
- And where the fieldfare followed in the rear,
- When all the fields around lay bound and hoar
- Beneath a thick integument of snow.
- So by God's cheap economy made rich
- To go upon my winter's task again.
- Henry David Thoreau

- Low-anchored cloud
- Newfoundlan air,
- Fountain-head and source of rivers,
- Dew-cloth, dream drapery,
- And napkin spread by fays;
- Drifting meadow of the air,
- Where bloom the daisied banks and violets,
- And in whose fenny labyrinth
- The bittern booms and heron wades;
- Spirit of lakes and seas and rivers,
- Bear only perfumes and the scent
- Of healing herbs to just men's fields!
- Henry David Thoreau

- Light-winged smoke, Icarian bird,
- Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight,
- Lark without song, and messenger of dawn,
- Circling above the hamlets as thy nest;
- Or else, departing dream, and shadowy form
- Of midnight vision, gathering up thy skirts;
- By night star-veiling, and by day
- Darkening the light blotting out the sun;
- Go thou my incense upward from this hearth,
- And ask the Gods to pardon this clear flame.
- Henry David Thoreau

- Packed in my mind lie all the clothes
- Which outward nature wears,
- And in its fasion's hourly change
- It all things else repairs
- In vain I look for change abroad,
- And can no difference find,
- Till som new ray of peace uncalled
- Illumes my inmost mind.
- What is it gilds the trees and clouds
- And paints the heavens so gay,
- But yonder fast-abiding light
- With its unchanging ray?
- Lo, when the sun streams through the wood,
- Upon a winter's morn,
- Where'er his silent beams intrude
- The murky night is gone.
- How could the patient pine have known
- The morning breeze would come,
- Or humble flowers anticipate
- The insect's noonday hum,-
- Till the new light with morning cheer
- From far streamed through the aisles,
- And nimbly told the forest trees
- For many stretching miles?
- I've heard within my inmost soul
- Such cheerful news,
- In the horizon of my mind
- Have seen such orient hues,
- As in the twilight of the dawn,
- When the first awake,
- Are heard within some silent wood,
- Where they the small twigs break,
- Or in the eastern skies are seen,
- Before the sun appears,
- The harbingers of summer heats
- Which from afar he bears.
- Henry David Thoreau

- Indeed indeed, I cannot tell,
- Though I ponder on it well,
- Which were easier to state,
- All my love or all my hate.
- Surely, surely, thou wilt trust me
- When I say thou dost disgust me.
- O, I hate thee with a hate
- That would fain annihilate;
- Yet sometimes against my will,
- My dear friend, I love thee still.
- It were treason to our love,
- And a sin to God above,
- One iota to abate
- Of a pure impartial hate.
- Henry David Thoreau

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