What are these things?

November 21.

I saw Fair Haven Pond with its island, and meadow between the island and the shore, and a strip of perfectly still and smooth water in the lee of the island, and two hawks, fish hawks perhaps, sailing over it. I did not see how it could be improved.

Yet i do not know what these things can be.

The hawks and the ducks keep so aloof! and Nature is so reserved!

I begin to see only when I cease to understand.

How adapted these forms and colors to my eye! A meadow and an island! I am made to love the pond and the meadow, as the wind is made to ripple the water.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 21, 1850  (see also 

Visions Illuminations Inspirations)

These forms and colors

so adapted to my eye

cannot be improved.

We are made to love

pond and meadow as the wind

to ripple water.

November 21, 1850

Fair Haven Pond with its island, and meadow between the island and the shore, and a strip of perfectly still and smooth water in the lee of the island, and two hawks. . . See February 14, 1851 ("One afternoon in the fall, November 21st, I saw Fair Haven Pond with its island and meadow; between the island and the shore, a strip of perfectly smooth water in the lee of the island; and two hawks sailing over it; and something more I saw which cannot easily be described . . ."); .April 14, 1852 ("Fair Haven Pond -- the pond, the meadow beyond the button-bush and willow curve, the island, and the meadow between the island and mainland with its own defining lines -- are all parted off like the parts of a mirror. A fish hawk is calmly sailing over all . . . "); See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Fair Haven Pond

Yet i do not know what these things can be. . . .Nature is so reserved! See November 30, 1858 ("In my account of this bream I cannot go a hair's breadth beyond the mere statement that it exists."); May 1850 ("In all my rambles I have seen no landscape which can make me forget Fair Haven. I still sit on its Cliff in a new spring day, and look over the awakening woods and the river, and hear the new birds sing, with the same delight as ever. It is as sweet a mystery to me as ever, what this world is.")