What's the Railroad to Me?

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

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 Oer Which the Reaper's Hand Has Passd

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

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

Winter Memories

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

Mist

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

Smoke

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

The Inward Morning

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

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