To the Maiden in the East* Low in the eastern sky Believe I knew thy thought, While gentle things were said. Believe the thrushes sung, And beasts knew what was meant, When thy free mind It was a summer eve, From yonder comes the sun, Along his dusty way; 4. The source for the present text is 5 ΙΟ 15 20 25 30 35 in a posthumous volume, Poems of 5. In the 1849 edition of A Week My books I'd fain cast off, I cannot read; 7. First published in The Dial for Octo- 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 1842, 1849 as given here. The version in The Poems of Nature (1895) shows slight variants in punctuation and indentation. 5 Plutarch was good, and so was Homer too, Our Shakespeare's life were rich to live again; Here while I lie beneath this walnut bough, Between the ants upon this hummock's crown? Bid Homer wait till I the issue learn, Tell Shakespeare to attend some leisure hour, This bed of herd's-grass and wild oats was spread And now the cordial clouds have shut all in, I am well drenched upon my bed of oats; Drip, drip the trees for all the country round, For shame the sun will never show himself, 8. Cf. the battle of the red and black ants in "Brute Neighbors," in Walden, also described in Homeric terms. There ΙΟ 155 20 25 30 35 40 1842, 1849 the champion ant is called Achilles; in the present passage the hero is Ajax. Haze9 Woof of the sun, ethereal gauze, Toil of the day displayed, sun-dust, From heath or stubble rising without song,- 5 ΙΟ 1843, 1849 1 Smoke 1 Light-winged Smoke, Icarian bird,2 Darkening the light and blotting out the sun; 5 ΙΟ 9. One of the vignettes captioned "Orphics" published in The Dial for April, 1843, this was reprinted without title in Thoreau's "Tuesday" chapter of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849). In reprinting this, with other poems, in Letters *** (1865), Emerson changed "fen" to "sun" in the first line, and this reading occurs in numerous later editions, but not in Poems of Nature (1895). 1. One of the vignettes captioned "Orphics" published in The Dial for April, 1843, this was reprinted in "Housewarming" in Walden (1854), following the sentence: "When the villagers were lighting their fires beyond the horizon, I too gave notice to the various wild inhabitants of Walden vale, by a smoky streamer from my chimney, that I was awake." The Walden text is identical with that of Poems of Nature, except for a comma at the end of 1. 2. 2. Daedalus, mythical artisan of the Greeks, escaped his enemies on wings made of feathers and wax, but Icarus, his son, melted his by flying too near the sun, and plunged to his death. 3. "Inspiration," one of Thoreau's best poems, is also important because it re If with light head erect I sing, Though all the Muses lend their force, From my poor love of anything, The verse is weak and shallow as its source. But if with bended neck I grope Listening behind me for my wit, With faith superior to hope, More anxious to keep back than forward it; Making my soul accomplice there Unto the flame my heart hath lit, Then will the verse forever wear Time cannot bend the line which God hath writ. Always the general show of things And such true love and reverence brings, That sometimes I forget that I am blind. But now there comes unsought, unseen, Grow sensible, and as God is, am wary. I hearing get, who had but ears, And sight, who had but eyes before, I moments live, who lived but years, And truth discern, who knew but learning's lore. I hear beyond the range of sound, I see beyond the range of sight, New earths and skies and seas around, And in my day the sun doth pale his light. A clear and ancient harmony Pierces my soul through all its din, Farther behind than they, farther within. flects his transcendental ideas as applied to creative expression, especially poetry. Not published in its entirety during Thoreau's life, this poem was conceived early-fragments of it appear in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849) as a kind of commentary on the ideas of this first prose volume. In his "Monday" chapter the reader will find 11. 29-30, 11. 39-40, and also a curious six-line combination of 11. 45-46 with the stanza beginning 1. 69. In "Friday" one finds the quatrain beginning 1. 25; all of these passages emphasize the transcendentalist's reliance on revealed or intuitional truth. Modern anthologies give several abbreviated versions of the poem, resulting from the publication of two different abbreviated texts soon after Thoreau's death. The first was of seven stanzas, not consecutive, in the Boston Commonwealth for June 19, 1863. The second, consisting of the first six of these stanzas, was included by Emerson in the Letters *** (1865). Our text reprints the twentyone stanzas as they were printed (from a manuscript) in Poems of Nature (1895). |