Echoes

Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveller's wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time.

The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers.

In my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, / But I have promises to keep, / And miles to go before I sleep, / And miles to go before I sleep.

I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o'er vales and hills, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host, of golden daffodils.

After the dazzle of day is gone, only the dark, dark night shows to my eyes the stars; after the plain of the surface and the breakers have gone, the depths of the ocean show beautiful forms.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, there is a rapture on the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more.

I need the sea because it teaches me. I don't know if I learn music or awareness, if it's a single wave or its vast existence, or only its harsh voice or its shining suggestion of fishes and ships. The fact is that until I fall asleep, in some magnetic way I move in the university of the waves.

I used to envy the father of our race, dwelling as he did in contact with the new-made fields and plants of Eden; but I do so no more, because I have discovered that I also live in "creation's dawn." The morning stars still sing together, and the world, not yet half made, becomes more beautiful every day.

I was walking along Tinker Creek and thinking of nothing at all and I saw the tree with the lights in it. I saw the backyard cedar where the mourning doves roost charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame. I stood on the grass with the lights in it, grass that was wholly fire, utterly focused and utterly dreamed. It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance.

The best of artists has no conception that a single block of marble does not contain within itself, beneath its surface; only the hand that obeys the intellect can reach it.

With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things.

The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us, thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing. The trees wave and the flowers bloom in our bodies as well as our souls, and every bird song, wind song, and tremendous storm song of the rocks in the heart of the mountains is our song, our very own, and sings our love.

Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.

Life is short, and Art long; the crisis fleeting; experience perilous, and decision difficult.

The beauty of the world which is so soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder.

I like a church, I like a cowl, I love a prophet of the soul, And on my heart monastic aisles Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles; Yet not for all his faith can see, Would I that cowled churchman be. Why should the vest on him allure, Which I could not on me endure?

I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit.

When I am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness. I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

Another glorious Sierra day in which one seems to be dissolved and absorbed and sent pulsing onward we know not where. Life seems neither long nor short, and we take no more heed to save time or make haste than do the trees and stars. This is true freedom, a good practical sort of immortality.

I was utterly alone with the sun and the earth. Lying down on the grass, I spoke in my soul to the earth, the sun, the air, and the distant sea far beyond sight. I thought of the earth's firmness — I felt it bear me up; through the grassy couch there came an influence as if I could feel the great earth speaking to me.

The sun and distant stars appeared to mingle in the perfection of the same natural order, and I felt, in the stillness of the tropical night, how much more alive and near to the heavens was this part of the earth.

My life is like a stroll upon the beach, As near the ocean's edge as I can go.

That though the radiance which was once so bright be now for ever taken from my sight, though nothing can bring back the hour of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; we will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind.

I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it.