Under the Trees and Elsewhere

Rosalind has a habit of swift decision when she has settled a question in her own mind, and I was not surprised when she replied with a single decisive word. But she also has a...

Come unto these yellow sands, And then take hands; Curtsied when you have, and kiss'd The wild waves whist, Foot it featly here and there; And, sweet sprites, the burden bear.

There are certain moods in which my feet turn, as by instinct, to the woods. I set out upon the winding road with a zest of anticipation whose edge no repetition of the after-ex...

The heaven which lies about us in our infancy, like every other heaven of which men have dreamed, lies mainly within us; it is the heaven of fresh instincts, of unworn receptivi...

Nature creates days for special insights and outlooks--days whose distinctive qualities make them part of the universal revelation of the year. There are days for the deep woods...

Stretched under the spreading branches of this noble elm, which has seen so many college generations come and go, I have well-nigh forgotten that life has any limitations of spa...

In nature, as in art, it is the sky which makes the landscape. Given the identical fields, woods, and retreating hills, and every change of sky, every modulation of light, will...

I have found that walking stimulates observation and opens one's eyes to movements and appearances in earth and sky, which ordinarily escape attention. The constant change of la...

In the pine woods, or floating under overhanging branches on the silent and almost motionless river, I have had visions of my study fire during the summer months, and, now that...

Every day two worlds lie at my door and invite me into mysteries as far apart as darkness and light. These two realms have nothing in common save a certain identity of form; col...

My study has been a dull place of late; even the open fire, which still lingers on the hearth, has failed to exorcise a certain gray and weary spirit which has somehow taken pos...

Who has not heard, amid the heat and din of cities, the voice of the sea striking suddenly into the hush of thought its penetrating note of mystery and longing? Then work and th...

One of the sights upon which my eyes rest oftenest and with deepest content is a broad sweep of meadow slowly climbing the western sky until it pauses at the edge of a noble pie...

I do not understand how any one who has watched the breaking of a summer day can question the noblest faiths of man. William Blake, with that integrity of insight which is often...

Since I turned the key on my study I have almost forgotten the familiar titles on which my eye rested whenever I took a survey of my book-shelves. Those friends stanch and true,...

For weeks past I have been conscious of some mystery in the air; there have been fleeting signs of secret communication between earth and sky, as if the hidden powers were in fr...

All day long the river has moved through my thought as it rolls through the landscape spread out at my feet. There it lies, winding for many a mile within the boundaries of this...

This morning the day broke with a promise of sultry heat which has been faithfully kept. The air was lifeless, the birds silent; the landscape seemed to shrink from the ardour o...

The stir of the morning has given place to a silence broken only by the shrill whir of the locust. The distant shore lines that ran clear and white against the low background of...

When the shadows lengthen and the landscape becomes indistinct, the common life of men seems to touch the life of Nature most closely and sympathetically. The work of the day is...

The path across the fields is so well worn that one can find his way along its devious course by night almost as easily as by day. I have gone over it at all hours, and have nev...

For days past there have been intangible hints of change in earth and air; the birds are silent, and the universal strident note of insect life makes more musical to memory the...