As we wished thee here below?
What season didst thou find?
’Twas winter here.
Are not the Fates more kind Than they appear?
Is thy brow clear again As in thy youthful years?
And was that ugly pain The summit of thy fears?
Yet thou wast cheery still; They could not quench thy fire; Thou didst abide their will, And then retire.
Where chiefly shall I look To feel thy presence near?
Along the neighboring brook May I thy voice still hear?
Dost thou still haunt the brink Of yonder river’s tide?
And may I ever think That thou art by my side?
What bird wilt thou employ To bring me word of thee?
For it would give them joy-- ’Twould give them liberty-- To serve their former lord With wing and minstrelsy.
A sadder strain mixed with their song, They’ve slowlier built their nests; Since thou art gone Their lively labor rests.
Where is the finch, the thrush, I used to hear?
Ah, they could well abide The dying year.
Now they no more return, I hear them not; They have remained to mourn, Or else forgot.
STANZAS Nature doth have her dawn each day, But mine are far between; Content, I cry, for, sooth to say, Mine brightest are, I ween.
For when my sun doth deign to rise, Though it be her noontide, Her fairest field in shadow lies, Nor can my light abide.
Sometimes I bask me in her day, Conversing with my mate, But if we interchange one ray, Forthwith her heats abate.
Through his discourse I climb and see As from some eastern hill, A brighter morrow rise to me Than lieth in her skill.
As ’twere two summer days in one, Two Sundays come together, Our rays united make one sun, With fairest summer weather.
THE INWARD MORNING Packed in my mind lie all the clothes Which outward nature wears, And in its fashion’s hourly change It all things else repairs.
In vain I look for change abroad, And can no difference find, Till some 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 morning news, In the horizon of my mind Have seen such orient hues, As in the twilight of the dawn, When the first birds 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.
GREECE When life contracts into a vulgar span, And human nature tires to be a man, I thank the Gods for Greece, That permanent realm of peace.
For as the rising moon far in the night Chequers the shade with her forerunning light, 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?
THE FUNERAL BELL One more is gone Out of the busy throng That tread these paths; The church-bell tolls, Its sad knell rolls To many hearths.
Flower-bells toll not, Their echoes roll not Upon my ear; There still perchance That gentle spirit haunts A fragrant bier.
Low lies the pall, Lowly the mourners all Their passage grope; No sable hue Mars the serene blue Of heaven’s cope.
In distant dell Faint sounds the funeral bell; A heavenly chime; Some poet there Weaves the light-burthened air Into sweet rhyme.
THE SUMMER RAIN My books I’d fain cast off, I cannot read, ’Twixt every page my thoughts go stray at large Down in the meadow, where is richer feed, And will not mind to hit their proper targe.
Plutarch was good, and so was Homer too, Our Shakespeare’s life were rich to live again, What Plutarch read, that was not good nor true, Nor Shakespeare’s books, unless his books were men.
Here while I lie beneath this walnut bough, What care I for the Greeks or for Troy town, If juster battles are enacted now Between the ants upon this hummock’s crown?
Bid Homer wait till I the issue learn, If red or black the gods will favor most, Or yonder Ajax will the phalanx turn, Struggling to heave some rock against the host.
Tell Shakespeare to attend some leisure hour, For now I’ve business with this drop of dew, And see you not, the clouds prepare a shower,-- I’ll meet him shortly when the sky is blue.
This bed of herdsgrass and wild oats was spread Last year with nicer skill than monarchs use, A clover tuft is pillow for my head, And violets quite overtop my shoes.
And now the cordial clouds have shut all in, And gently swells the wind to say all’s well; The scattered drops are falling fast and thin, Some in the pool, some in the flower-bell.
I am well drenched upon my bed of oats; But see that globe come rolling down its stem, Now like a lonely planet there it floats, And now it sinks into my garment’s hem.
Drip, drip the trees for all the country round, And richness rare distils from every bough; The wind alone it is makes every sound, Shaking down crystals on the leaves below.
For shame the sun will never show himself, Who could not with his beams e’er melt me so; My dripping locks,--they would become an elf, Who in a beaded coat does gayly go.
MIST Low-anchored cloud, Newfoundland air, Fountain-head and source of rivers, 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.
SMOKE[8] 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 and blotting out the sun; Go thou, my incense, upward from this hearth, And ask the gods to pardon this clear flame.
HAZE Woof of the sun,[9] ethereal gauze, Woven of Nature’s richest stuffs, Visible heat, air-water, and dry sea, Last conquest of the eye; Toil of the day displayed, sun-dust, Aerial surf upon the shores of earth, Ethereal estuary, frith of light, Breakers of air, billows of heat, Fine summer spray on inland seas; Bird of the sun, transparent-winged, Owlet of noon, soft-pinioned, From heath or stubble rising without song,-- Establish thy serenity o’er the fields.
THE MOON ‘Time wears her not; she doth his chariot guide; Mortality below her orb is placed.’--RALEIGH.
The full-orbed moon with unchanged ray Mounts up the eastern sky, Not doomed to these short nights for aye, But shining steadily.
She does not wane, but my fortùne, Which her rays do not bless; My wayward path declineth soon, But she shines not the less.
And if she faintly glimmers here And palèd is her light, Yet always in her proper sphere She’s mistress of the night.
THE VIREO Upon the lofty elm-tree sprays The vireo rings the changes sweet, During the trivial summer days, Striving to lift our thoughts above the street.
THE POET’S DELAY In vain I see the morning rise, In vain observe the western blaze, Who idly look to other skies, Expecting life by other ways.
Amidst such boundless wealth without, I only still am poor within, The birds have sung their summer out, But still my spring does not begin.
Shall I then wait the autumn wind, Compelled to seek a milder day, And leave no curious nest behind, No woods still echoing to my lay?
LINES All things are current found On earthly ground, Spirits and elements Have their descents.
Night and day, year on year, High and low, far and near, These are our own aspects, These are our own regrets.
Ye gods of the shore, Who abide evermore, I see your far headland, Stretching on either hand; I hear the sweet evening sounds From your undecaying grounds; Cheat me no more with time, Take me to your clime.
NATURE’S CHILD I am the autumnal sun, With autumn gales my race is run; When will the hazel put forth its flowers, Or the grape ripen under my bowers?
When will the harvest or the hunter’s moon, Turn my midnight into mid-noon?
I am all sere and 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.
THE FALL OF THE LEAF[10] Thank God who seasons thus the year, And sometimes kindly slants his rays; For in his winter he’s most near And plainest seen upon the shortest days.
Who gently tempers now his heats, And then his harsher cold, lest we Should surfeit on the summer’s sweets, Or pine upon the winter’s crudity.
A sober mind will walk alone, Apart from nature, if need be, And only its own seasons own; For nature leaving its humanity.
Sometimes a late autumnal thought Has crossed my mind in green July, And to its early freshness brought Late ripened fruits, and an autumnal sky.
-------- The evening of the year draws on, The fields a later aspect wear; Since Summer’s garishness is gone, Some grains of night tincture the noontide air.
Behold! the shadows of the trees Now circle wider ’bout their stem, Like sentries that by slow degrees Perform their rounds, gently protecting them.
And as the year doth decline, The sun allows a scantier light; Behind each needle of the pine There lurks a small auxiliar to the night.
I hear the cricket’s slumbrous lay Around, beneath me, and on high; It rocks the night, it soothes the day, And everywhere is Nature’s lullaby.
But most he chirps beneath the sod, When he has made his winter bed; His creak grown fainter but more broad, A film of autumn o’er the summer spread.
Small birds, in fleets migrating by, Now beat across some meadow’s bay, And as they tack and veer on high, With faint and hurried click beguile the way.
Far in the woods, these golden days, Some leaf obeys its Maker’s call; And through their hollow aisles it plays With delicate touch the prelude of the Fall.
Gently withdrawing from its stem, It lightly lays itself along Where the same hand hath pillowed them, Resigned to sleep upon the old year’s throng.
The loneliest birch is brown and sere, The furthest pool is strewn with leaves, Which float upon their watery bier, Where is no eye that sees, no heart that grieves.
The jay screams through the chestnut wood; The crisped and yellow leaves around Are hue and texture of my mood-- And these rough burrs my heirlooms on the ground.
The threadbare trees, so poor and thin-- They are no wealthier than I; But with as brave a core within They rear their boughs to the October sky.
Poor knights they are which bravely wait The charge of Winter’s cavalry, Keeping a simple Roman state, Discumbered of their Persian luxury.
SMOKE IN WINTER The sluggish smoke curls up from some deep dell, The stiffened air exploring in the dawn, And making slow acquaintance with the day; Delaying now upon its heavenward course, In wreathèd loiterings dallying with itself, With as uncertain purpose and slow deed, As its half-wakened master by the hearth, Whose mind, still slumbering, and sluggish thoughts Have not yet swept into the onward current Of the new day;--and now it streams afar, The while the chopper goes with step direct, And mind intent to wield the early axe.
First in the dusky dawn he sends abroad His early scout, his emissary, smoke, The earliest, latest pilgrim from the roof, To feel the frosty air, inform the day; And while he crouches still beside the hearth, Nor musters courage to unbar the door, It has gone down the glen with the light wind, And o’er the plain unfurled its venturous wreath, Draped the tree-tops, loitered upon the hill, And warmed the pinions of the early bird; And now, perchance, high in the crispy air, Has caught sight of the day o’er the earth’s edge, And greets its master’s eye at his low door, As some refulgent cloud in the upper sky.
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 strews them By some meandering rivulet, which make The best philosophy untrue that aims But to console man for his grievances.
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 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 summer past Some unrecorded beam slanted across The upland pastures where the johnswort 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.
STANZAS WRITTEN AT WALDEN When Winter fringes every bough With his fantastic wreath, And puts the seal of silence now Upon the leaves beneath; When every stream in its pent-house Goes gurgling on its way, And in his gallery the mouse Nibbleth the meadow hay; Methinks the summer still is nigh, And lurketh underneath, As that same meadow-mouse doth lie Snug in that last year’s heath.
And if perchance the chicadee Lisp a faint note anon, The snow is summer’s canopy, Which she herself put on.
Fair blossoms deck the cheerful trees, And dazzling fruits depend; The north wind sighs a summer breeze, The nipping frosts to fend, Bringing glad tidings unto me, The while I stand all ear, Of a serene eternity, Which need not winter fear.
Out on the silent pond straightway The restless ice doth crack, And pond-sprites merry gambols play Amid the deafening rack.
Eager I hasten to the vale, As if I heard brave news, How Nature held high festival, Which it were hard to lose.
I gambol with my neighbor ice, And sympathising quake, As each new crack darts in a trice Across the gladsome lake.
One with the cricket in the ground, And fagot on the hearth, Resounds the rare domestic sound Along the forest path.
THE THAW I saw the civil sun drying earth’s tears, Her tears of joy that only faster flowed.
Fain would I stretch me by the highway side To thaw and trickle with the melting snow; That mingled, soul and body, with the tide, I too may through the pores of nature flow.
A WINTER SCENE[11] The rabbit leaps, The mouse out-creeps, The flag out-peeps Beside the brook; The ferret weeps, The marmot sleeps, The owlet keeps In his snug nook.
The apples thaw, The ravens caw, The squirrels gnaw The frozen fruit.
To their retreat I track the feet Of mice that eat The apple’s root.
The snow-dust falls, The otter crawls, The partridge calls, Far in the wood.
The traveller dreams, The tree-ice gleams, The blue-jay screams In angry mood.
The willows droop, The alders stoop, The pheasants group Beneath the snow.
The catkins green Cast o’er the scene A summer’s sheen, A genial glow.
THE CROW Thou dusky spirit of the wood, Bird of an ancient brood, Flitting thy lonely way, A meteor in the summer’s day, From wood to wood, from hill to hill, Low over forest, field, and rill, What wouldst thou say?
Why shouldst thou haunt the day?
What makes thy melancholy float?
What bravery inspires thy throat, And bears thee up above the clouds, Over desponding human crowds, Which far below Lay thy haunts low?
TO A STRAY FOWL Poor bird! destined to lead thy life Far in the adventurous west, And here to be debarred to-night From thy accustomed nest; Must thou fall back upon old instinct now-- Well-nigh extinct under man’s fickle care?
Did heaven bestow its quenchless inner light So long ago, for thy small want to-night?
Why stand’st upon thy toes to crow so late?
The moon is deaf to thy low feathered fate; Or dost thou think so to possess the night, And people the drear dark with thy brave sprite?
And now with anxious eye thou look’st about, While the relentless shade draws on its veil, For some sure shelter from approaching dews, And the insidious step of nightly foes.
I fear imprisonment has dulled thy wit, Or ingrained servitude extinguished it-- But no--dim memory of the days of yore, By Brahmapootra and the Jumna’s shore, Where thy proud race flew swiftly o’er the heath, And sought its food the jungle’s shade beneath, Has taught thy wings to seek yon friendly trees, As erst by Indus’ bank and far Ganges.
MOUNTAINS With frontier strength ye stand your ground, With grand content ye circle round, Tumultuous silence for all sound, Ye distant nursery of rills, Monadnock, and the Peterborough hills;-- Firm argument that never stirs, Outcircling the philosophers,-- Like some vast fleet Sailing through rain and sleet, Through winter’s cold and summer’s heat; Still holding on upon your high emprise, Until ye find a shore amid the skies; Not skulking close to land, With cargo contraband; For they who sent a venture out by ye Have set the Sun to see Their honesty.
Ships of the line, each one, Ye westward run, Convoying clouds, Which cluster in your shrouds, Always before the gale, Under a press of sail, With weight of metal all untold;-- I seem to feel ye in my firm seat here, Immeasurable depth of hold, And breadth of beam, and length of running gear.
Methinks ye take luxurious pleasure In your novel western leisure; So cool your brows and freshly blue, As Time had nought for ye to do; For ye lie at your length, An unappropriated strength, Unhewn primeval timber For knees so stiff, for masts so limber, The stock of which new earths are made, One day to be our western trade, Fit for the stanchions of a world Which through the seas of space is hurled.
While we enjoy a lingering ray, Ye still o’ertop the western day, Reposing yonder on God’s croft, Like solid stacks of hay.
So bold a line as ne’er was writ On any page by human wit; The forest glows as if An enemy’s camp-fires shone Along the horizon, Or the day’s funeral pyre Were lighted there; Edged with silver and with gold, The clouds hang o’er in damask fold, And with fresh depth of amber light The west is dight, Where still a few rays slant, That even Heaven seems extravagant.
Watatic Hill Lies on the horizon’s sill Like a child’s toy left overnight, And other duds to left and right; On the earth’s edge, mountains and trees Stand as they were on air graven, Or as the vessels in a haven Await the morning breeze.
I fancy even Through your defiles windeth the way to heaven; And yonder still, in spite of history’s page, Linger the golden and the silver age; Upon the laboring gale The news of future centuries is brought, And of new dynasties of thought, From your remotest vale.
But special I remember thee, Wachusett, who like me Standest alone without society.
Thy far blue eye, A remnant of the sky, Seen through the clearing of the gorge, Or from the windows of the forge, Doth leaven all it passes by.
Nothing is true, But stands ’tween me and you, Thou western pioneer, Who know’st not shame nor fear, By venturous spirit driven Under the eaves of heaven, And canst expand thee there, And breathe enough of air.
Even beyond the West Thou migratest Into unclouded tracts, Without a pilgrim’s axe, Cleaving thy road on high With thy well-tempered brow, And mak’st thyself a clearing in the sky.
Upholding heaven, holding down earth, Thy pastime from thy birth, Not steadied by the one, nor leaning on the other;-- May I approve myself thy worthy brother!
THE RESPECTABLE FOLKS The respectable folks,-- Where dwell they?
They whisper in the oaks, And they sigh in the hay; Summer and winter, night and day, Out on the meadow, there dwell they.
They never die, Nor snivel, nor cry, Nor ask our pity With a wet eye.
A sound estate they ever mend, To every asker readily lend; To the ocean wealth, To the meadow health, To Time his length, To the rocks strength, To the stars light, To the weary night, To the busy day, To the idle play; And so their good cheer never ends, For all are their debtors, and all their friends.
POVERTY A FRAGMENT If I am poor, It is that I am proud; If God has made me naked and a boor, He did not think it fit his work to shroud.
The poor man comes direct from heaven to earth, As stars drop down the sky, and tropic beams; The rich receives in our gross air his birth, As from low suns are slanted golden gleams.
Yon sun is naked, bare of satellite, Unless our earth and moon that office hold; Though his perpetual day feareth no night, And his perennial summer dreads no cold.
Mankind may delve, but cannot my wealth spend; If I no partial wealth appropriate, No armèd ships unto the Indies send, None robs me of my Orient estate.
CONSCIENCE Conscience is instinct bred in the house, Feeling and Thinking propagate the sin By an unnatural breeding in and in.
I say, Turn it out doors, Into the moors.
I love a life whose plot is simple, And does not thicken with every pimple, A soul so sound no sickly conscience binds it, That makes the universe no worse than’t finds it.
I love an earnest soul, Whose mighty joy and sorrow Are not drowned in a bowl, And brought to life to-morrow; That lives one tragedy, And not seventy; A conscience worth keeping, Laughing not weeping; A conscience wise and steady, And for ever ready; Not changing with events, Dealing in compliments; A conscience exercised about Large things, where one _may_ doubt.
I love a soul not all of wood, Predestinated to be good, But true to the backbone Unto itself alone, And false to none; Born to its own affairs, Its own joys and own cares; By whom the work which God begun Is finished, and not undone; Taken up where he left off, Whether to worship or to scoff; If not good, why then evil, If not good god, good devil.
Goodness!--you hypocrite, come out of that, Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.
I have no patience towards Such conscientious cowards.
Give me simple laboring folk, Who love their work, Whose virtue is a song To cheer God along.
PILGRIMS ‘Have you not seen In ancient times Pilgrims pass by Toward other climes?
With shining faces, Youthful and strong, Mounting this hill With speech and with song?’
‘Ah, my good sir, I know not those ways: Little my knowledge, Tho’ many my days.
When I have slumbered, I have heard sounds As of travellers passing These my grounds: ‘’Twas a sweet music Wafted them by, I could not tell If afar off or nigh.
Unless I dreamed it, This was of yore: I never told it To mortal before; ‘Never remembered But in my dreams, What to me waking A miracle seems.’
THE DEPARTURE In this roadstead I have ridden, In this covert I have hidden; Friendly thoughts were cliffs to me, And I hid beneath their lea.
This true people took the stranger, And warm-hearted housed the ranger; They received their roving guest, And have fed him with the best; Whatsoe’er the land afforded To the stranger’s wish accorded; Shook the olive, stripped the vine, And expressed the strengthening wine.
And by night they did spread o’er him What by day they spread before him;-- That good-will which was repast Was his covering at last.
The stranger moored him to their pier Without anxiety or fear; By day he walked the sloping land, By night the gentle heavens he scanned.
When first his barque stood inland To the coast of that far Finland, Sweet-watered brooks came tumbling to the shore The weary mariner to restore.
And still he stayed from day to day, If he their kindness might repay; But more and more The sullen waves came rolling toward the shore.
And still the more the stranger waited, The less his argosy was freighted, And still the more he stayed, The less his debt was paid.
So he unfurled his shrouded mast To receive the fragrant blast; And that same refreshing gale Which had wooed him to remain Again and again, It was that filled his sail And drove him to the main.
All day the low-hung clouds Dropt tears into the sea; And the wind amid the shrouds Sighed plaintively.
INDEPENDENCE[12] My life more civil is and free Than any civil polity.
Ye princes, keep your realms And circumscribèd power, Not wide as are my dreams, Nor rich as is this hour.
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 Time’s ear is deaf, Penurious States lend no relief Out of their pelf: Can help itself.
Be sure your fate Doth keep apart its state,-- Not linked with any band, Even the noblest in the land,-- In tented fields with cloth of gold No place doth hold, But is more chivalrous than they are, And sigheth for a nobler war; A finer strain its trumpet rings, A brighter gleam its armor flings.
The life that I aspire to live, No man proposeth me; No trade upon the street[13] Wears its emblazonry.
DING DONG[14] When the world grows old by the chimney-side, Then forth to the youngling nooks I glide, Where over the water and over the land The bells are booming on either hand.
Now up they go ding, then down again dong, And awhile they ring to the same old song, For the metal goes round at a single bound, A-cutting the fields with its measured sound, While the tired tongue falls with a lengthened boom As solemn and loud as the crack of doom.
Then changed is their measure to tone upon tone, And seldom it is that one sound comes alone, For they ring out their peals in a mingled throng, And the breezes waft the loud ding-dong along.
When the echo hath reached me in this lone vale, I am straightway a hero in coat of mail, I tug at my belt and I march on my post, And feel myself more than a match for a host.
MY PRAYER Great God, I ask thee for no meaner pelf Than that I may not disappoint myself; That in my action I may soar as high As I can now discern with this clear eye.
And next in value, which thy kindness lends, That I may greatly disappoint my friends, Howe’er they think or hope that it may be, They may not dream how thou’st distinguished me.
That my weak hand may equal my firm faith, And my life practise more than my tongue saith; That my low conduct may not show, Nor my relenting lines, That I thy purpose did not know, Or overrated thy designs.
Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press FOOTNOTES: [1] In the present selection a return has been made, wherever possible, from the emendations introduced by Thoreau’s editors to the original text.
[2] Article on ‘The Poetry of Thoreau,’ by Joel Benton. _Lippincott’s Magazine_, 1886.
[3] John Weiss, in the _Christian Examiner_, 1865.
[4] This poem was written on a sheet of paper wrapped round a bunch of violets, tied loosely with a straw, and thrown into the window of a friend. It was read at Thoreau’s funeral by his friend Bronson Alcott.
[5] The above title, prefixed to these stanzas in Emerson’s selection, is scarcely suited to so personal and characteristic a poem.
[6] Suggested by the print of Guido’s ‘Aurora,’ sent by Mrs. Carlyle as a wedding gift to Mrs. Emerson.
[7] The explanation of this poem, given on Emerson’s authority, but necessarily somewhat conjectural, is that a reference is made, under the character of the ‘gentle boy,’ to the girl with whom both Henry and John Thoreau were in love.
[8] This and the following poem appeared under the title of ‘Orphics’ in the _Dial_.
[9] Wrongly printed ‘fen’ in Emerson’s selection.
[10] The first four of these stanzas (unnamed by Thoreau) were published in the _Boston Commonwealth_ in 1863, under the title of ‘The Soul’s Season,’ the remainder as ‘The Fall of the Leaf.’ There can be little doubt that they are parts of one complete poem.
[11] These stanzas formed part of the original manuscript of the essay on ‘A Winter Walk,’ but were excluded by Emerson.
[12] First printed in full in the _Boston Commonwealth_, October 30, 1863. The last fourteen lines had appeared in the _Dial_ under the title of ‘The Black Knight,’ and are so reprinted in the Riverside Edition.
[13] In the _Dial_ this line runs, ‘Only the promise of my heart.’
[14] A copy of this hitherto unpublished poem has been kindly furnished by Miss A. J. Ward.