What Nature, alas! has denied
To the delicate growth of our isle,
Art has in a measure supplied,
And winter is deck’d with a smile.
See, Mary, what beauties I bring
From the shelter of that sunny shed,
Where the flowers have the charms of the spring,
Though abroad they are frozen and dead.


‘Tis a bower of Arcadian sweets,
Where Flora is still in her prime,
A fortress to which she retreats
From the cruel assaults of the clime.
While earth wears a mantle of snow,
These pinks are as fresh and as gay
As the fairest and sweetest that blow
On the beautiful bosom of May.


See how they have safely survived
The frowns of a sky so severe;
Such Mary’s true love, that has lived
Through many a turbulent year.
The charms of the lat...

The linnet's warble, sinking towards a close,
Hints to the thrush 'tis time for their repose;
The shrill-voiced thrush is heedless, and again
The monitor revives his own sweet strain;
But both will soon be mastered, and the copse
Be left as silent as the mountain-tops,
Ere some commanding star dismiss to rest
The throng of rooks, that now, from twig or nest,
(After a steady flight on home-bound wings,
And a last game of mazy hoverings
Around their ancient grove) with cawing noise
Disturb the liquid music's equipoise.

O Nightingale! Who ever heard thy song
Might here be moved, till Fancy grows so strong
That listening sense is pardonably cheated
Where wood or stream by thee was never greeted.
Surely, from fairest spots of favoured lands,
Were not som...

In youth from rock to rock I went
From hill to hill in discontent
Of pleasure high and turbulent,
Most pleased when most uneasy;
But now my own delights I make,
Thirst at every rill can slake,
And gladly Nature's love partake,
Of Thee, sweet Daisy!

Thee Winter in the garland wears
That thinly decks his few gray hairs;
Spring parts the clouds with softest airs,
That she may sun thee;
Whole Summer-fields are thine by right;
And Autumn, melancholy Wight!
Doth in thy crimson head delight
When rains are on thee.

In shoals and bands, a morrice train,
Thou greet'st the traveller in the lane;
Pleased at his greeting thee again;
Yet nothing daunted,
Nor grieved if thou be set at nought:
And oft alone in nooks remote
We meet the...

Earth's children cleave to Earth, her frail
Decaying children dread decay.
Yon wreath of mist that leaves the vale,
And lessens in the morning ray:
Look, how, by mountain rivulet,
It lingers as it upward creeps,
And clings to fern and copsewood set
Along the green and dewy steeps:
Clings to the fragrant kalmia, clings
To precipices fringed with grass,
Dark maples where the wood-thrush sings,
And bowers of fragrant sassafras.
Yet all in vain, it passes still
From hold to hold, it cannot stay,
And in the very beams that fill
The world with glory, wastes away,
Till, parting from the mountain's brow,
It vanishes from human eye,
And that which sprung of earth is now
A portion of the glorious sky.

How pleasant, when the heat of day is bye,
And seething dew empurples round the hill
Of the horizon, sweeping with the eye
In easy circles, wander where we will!
While o'er the meadow's little fluttering rill
The twittering sunbeam weakens cool and dim,
And busy hum of flies is hush'd and still.
How sweet the walks by hedge-row bushes seem,
On this side wavy grass, on that the stream;
While dog-rose, woodbine, and the privet-spike,
On the young gales their rural sweetness teem,
With yellow flag-flowers rustling in the dyke;
Each mingling into each, a ceaseless charm
To every heart that nature's sweets can warm.

When winter's cold and summer's heat
Shall come and go again,
A hundred years will be complete
Since Marion crossed the main,
And brought unto this wild retreat
His dark-eyed wife of Spain.

He was the founder of a free
And independent band,
Who lit the fires of liberty
The revolution fanned:--
His patent of nobility
Read in the ransomed land!

Around his deeds a lustre throngs,
A heritage designed
To teach the world to spurn the wrongs
Once threatened all mankind:--
To his posterity belongs
The peerage of the mind.

As sunbeams stream through liberal space
And nothing jostle or displace,
So waved the pine-tree through my thought
And fanned the dreams it never brought.

'Whether is better, the gift or the donor?
Come to me,'
Quoth the pine-tree,
'I am the giver of honor.
My garden is the cloven rock,
And my manure the snow;
And drifting sand-heaps feed my stock,
In summer's scorching glow.
He is great who can live by me:
The rough and bearded forester
Is better than the lord;
God fills the script and canister,
Sin piles the loaded board.
The lord is the peasant that was,
The peasant the lord that shall be;
The lord is hay, the peasant grass,
One dry, and one the living tree.
Who liveth by the ragged pine
Founde...

(See Note 43)

    When Norse nature's dower
    Tones will paint with power,
There is more than mountain-heights that tower, -
    Plains spread wide-extending,
    Whereon at their wending
Summer nights soft dews are sending.

    Forests great are growing,
    And in long waves going
Glommen's valley fill to overflowing, -
    There are green slopes vernal,
    Glad with joy fraternal,
Open to the light supernal.

    For revealing wholly
    All things fine and holy -
As in sunshine birds are soaring slowly,
    Or, their spells transmitting,
    Northern Lights are flitting, -
None but maiden-hands are fitting.

    Your hands came, and playing,
    O'er their secrets straying
Picture after picture are p...

Intent on gathering wool from hedge and brake
Yon busy Little-ones rejoice that soon
A poor old Dame will bless them for the boon:
Great is their glee while flake they add to flake
With rival earnestness; far other strife
Than will hereafter move them, if they make
Pastime their idol, give their day of life
To pleasure snatched for reckless pleasure's sake.
Can pomp and show allay one heart-born grief?
Pains which the World inflicts can she requite?
Not for an interval however brief;
The silent thoughts that search for steadfast light,
Love from her depths, and Duty in her might,
And Faith, these only yield secure relief.

Those words were uttered as in pensive mood
We turned, departing from that solemn sight:
A contrast and reproach to gross delight,
And life's unspiritual pleasures daily wooed!
But now upon this thought I cannot brood;
It is unstable as a dream of night;
Nor will I praise a cloud, however bright,
Disparaging Man's gifts, and proper food.
Grove, isle, with every shape of sky-built dome,
Though clad in colours beautiful and pure,
Find in the heart of man no natural home:
The immortal Mind craves objects that endure:
These cleave to it; from these it cannot roam,
Nor they from it: their fellowship is secure.

Atoms as old as stars,
Mutation on mutation,
Millions and millions of cells
Dividing yet still the same,
From air and changing earth,
From ancient Eastern rivers,
From turquoise tropic seas,
Unto myself I came.

My spirit like my flesh
Sprang from a thousand sources,
From cave-man, hunter and shepherd,
From Karnak, Cyprus, Rome;

The living thoughts in me
Spring from dead men and women,
Forgotten time out of mind
And many as bubbles of foam.

Here for a moment's space
Into the light out of darkness,
I come and they come with me
Finding words with my breath;

From the wisdom of many life-times
Seek for Beauty, she only
Fights with man against Death!"

Sweet Stay-at-Home, sweet Well-content,
Thou knowest of no strange continent:
Thou hast not felt thy bosom keep
A gentle motion with the deep;
Thou hast not sailed in Indian seas,
Where scent comes forth in every breeze.
Thou hast not seen the rich grape grow
For miles, as far as eyes can go;
Thou hast not seen a summer's night
When maids could sew by a worm's light;
Nor the North Sea in spring send out
Bright hues that like birds flit about
In solid cages of white ice,
Sweet Stay-at-Home, sweet Love-one-place.
Thou hast not seen black fingers pick
White cotton when the bloom is thick,
Nor heard black throats in harmony;
Nor hast thou sat on stones that lie
Flat on the earth, that once did rise
To hide proud kings from common eyes,
Thou has...

See yonder leafless trees against the sky,
How they diffuse themselves into the air,
And, ever subdividing, separate
Limbs into branches, branches into twigs.
As if they loved the element, and hasted
To dissipate their being into it.



Parks and ponds are good by day;
I do not delight
In black acres of the night,
Nor my unseasoned step disturbs
The sleeps of trees or dreams of herbs.



In Walden wood the chickadee
Runs round the pine and maple tree
Intent on insect slaughter:
O tufted entomologist!
Devour as many as you list,
Then drink in Walden water.



The low December vault in June be lifted high,
And largest clouds be flakes of down in that enormous sky.

Wandering by the river's edge,
I love to rustle through the sedge
And through the woods of reed to tear
Almost as high as bushes are.
Yet, turning quick with shudder chill,
As danger ever does from ill,
Fear's moment ague quakes the blood,
While plop the snake coils in the flood
And, hissing with a forked tongue,
Across the river winds along.
In coat of orange, green, and blue
Now on a willow branch I view,
Grey waving to the sunny gleam,
Kingfishers watch the ripple stream
For little fish that nimble bye
And in the gravel shallows lie.

Eddies run before the boats,
Gurgling where the fisher floats,
Who takes advantage of the gale
And hoists his handkerchief for sail
On osier twigs that form a mast--
While idly lies, nor wanted mo...

Light and silv'ry cloudlets hover

In the air, as yet scarce warm;
Mild, with glimmer soft tinged over,

Peeps the sun through fragrant balm.
Gently rolls and heaves the ocean

As its waves the bank o'erflow.
And with ever restless motion

Moves the verdure to and fro,

Mirror'd brightly far below.

What is now the foliage moving?

Air is still, and hush'd the breeze,
Sultriness, this fullness loving,

Through the thicket, from the trees.
Now the eye at once gleams brightly,

See! the infant band with mirth
Moves and dances nimbly, lightly,

As the morning gave it birth,

Flutt'ring two and two o'er earth.

        Let the sea make a noise, let the floods clap their hands.

                                                                                                            PSALM XCVIII.


    Sweet rural scene!
    Of flocks and green!
At careless ease my limbs are spread;
    All nature still,
    But yonder rill;
And list'ning pines nod o'er my head:

    In prospect wide,
    The boundless tide!
Waves cease to foam, and winds to roar;
    Without a breeze,
    The curling seas
Dance on, in measure to the shore.

    Who sings the source
    Of wealth and force?
Vast field of commerce, and big war,
    Where wonders dwell!
    Where terrors swell!
And Neptune thunders from his car?

    Where? where are t...

When Minerva, to give pleasure
To Prometheus, her well-loved one,
Brought a brimming bowl of nectar
From the glorious realms of heaven
As a blessing for his creatures,
And to pour into their bosoms
Impulses for arts ennobling,
She with rapid footstep hasten'd,
Fearing Jupiter might see her,
And the golden goblet trembled,
And there fell a few drops from it
On the verdant plain beneath her.
Then the busy bees flew thither
Straightway, eagerly to drink them,
And the butterfly came quickly
That he, too, might find a drop there;
Even the misshapen spider
Thither crawl'd and suck'd with vigour.

To a happy end they tasted,
They, and other gentle insects!
For with mortals now divide they
ArtÄthat noblest gift of all.

O soul of life, 't is thee we long to hear,
Thine eyes we seek for, and thy touch we dream;
Lost from our days, thou art a spirit near, -
Life needs thine eloquence, and ways supreme.
More real than we who but a semblance wear,
We see thee not, because thou wilt not seem!