Mist

by Henry David Thoreau

Mist 

Low-anchored cloud, 

Newfoundland air, 

Fountain head and source of rivers, 

Dew-cloth, dream drapery, 

And napkin spread by fays; 

Drifting meadow of the air, 

Where bloom the dasied banks and violets, 

And in whose fenny labyrinth 

The bittern booms and heron wades; 

Spirit of the lake and seas and rivers, 

Bear only perfumes and the scent 

Of healing herbs to just men's fields! 

Nature 

O Nature! I do not aspire

To be the highest in thy choir, -

To be a meteor in thy sky,

Or comet that may range on high;

Only a zephyr that may blow

Among the reeds by the river low;

Give me thy most privy place

Where to run my airy race.

In some withdrawn, unpublic mead

Let me sigh upon a reed,

Or in the woods, with leafy din,

Whisper the still evening in:

Some still work give me to do, -

Only - be it near to you!

For I'd rather be thy child

And pupil, in the forest wild,

Than be the king of men elsewhere,

And most sovereign slave of care;

To have one moment of thy dawn,

Than share the city's year forlorn.

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 fortune, 

Which her rays do not bless, 

My wayward path declineth soon, 

But she shines not the less. 

And if she faintly glimmers here, 

And paled is her light, 

Yet alway in her proper sphere 

She's mistress of the night. 

Epitaph On The World 

Here lies the body of this world, 

Whose soul alas to hell is hurled. 

This golden youth long since was past, 

Its silver manhood went as fast, 

An iron age drew on at last; 

'Tis vain its character to tell, 

The several fates which it befell, 

What year it died, when 'twill arise, 

We only know that here it lies.