I awake to its music with the calmness of a lake when there is not a breath of wind.
Whom shall I thank for it?
To be calm, to be serene!
Are our serene moments mere foretastes of heaven,-- or a transient realization of what might be the whole tenor of our lives?
Sometimes we are clarified and calmed healthily, as never before in our lives. We become like a still lake of purest crystal.
All the world goes by us and is reflected in our deeps. And without effort our depths are revealed to ourselves.
Such clarity obtained by such pure means!
So is it with us.
I feel my Maker blessing me.
June 22, 2016
H.D. Thoreau, Journal , June 22, 1851
Sometime we are calmed
like a still lake when there is
not a breath of wind.
Each touch of the world
to the sane man affords
an exquisite pleasure.
To be calm, to be serene! There is the calmness of the lake when there is not a breath of wind; See August 31, 1852 ("The wind is gone down; the water is smooth; a serene evening is approaching; the clouds are dispersing. . . .The reflections are the more perfect for the blackness of the water. This is the most glorious part of this day, the serenest, warmest, brightest part, and the most suggestive."); July 21, 1853 ("He who passes over a lake at noon, when the waves run, little imagines its serene and placid beauty at evening, as little as he anticipates his own serenity."). June 16, 1854 ("We walk to lakes to see our serenity reflected in them. When we are not serene, we go not to them.")
The unclouded mind,
serene, pure, ineffable
like the western sky.
January 17, 1852
Serene as the sky,
emulating nature with
calm and peaceful lives.
October 3, 1859
So perfectly calm,
yet no man but myself sees
the Pond this morning.
See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Serene as the Sky.
My pulse must beat with Nature. After a hard day's work without a thought, turning my very brain into a mere tool, only in the quiet of evening do I so far recover my senses as to hear the cricket, which in fact has been chirping all day.
In my better hours I am conscious of the influx of a serene and unquestionable wisdom ... What is that other kind of life to which I am thus continually allured ? which alone I love ? Is it a life for this world? ... Are our serene moments mere foretastes of heaven, — joys gratuitously vouchsafed to us as a consolation, — or simply a transient realization of what might be the whole tenor of our lives?
To be calm, to be serene! There is the calmness of the lake when there is not a breath of wind; there is the calmness of a stagnant ditch. So is it with us.
Sometimes we are clarified and calmed healthily, as we never were before in our lives, not by an opiate, but by some unconscious obedience to the all-just laws, so that we become like a still lake of purest crystal and without an effort our depths are revealed to our selves. All the world goes by us and is reflected in our deeps.
Such clarity! obtained by such pure means! by simple living, by honesty of purpose. We live and rejoice. I awoke into a music which no one about me heard. Whom shall I thank for it ?
The luxury of wisdom! the luxury of virtue! Are there any intemperate in these things ? I feel my Maker blessing me. To the sane man the world is a musical instrument. The very touch affords an exquisite pleasure.
And I hear around me, but never in sight, the many wood thrushes whetting their steel-like notes. Such keen singers ! It takes a fiery heat, many dry pine leaves added to the furnace of the sun, to temper their strains! Always they are either rising or falling to a new strain. After what a moderate pause they deliver themselves again ! saying ever a new thing, avoiding repetition, methinks answering one another. While most other birds take their siesta, the wood thrush discharges his song. It is delivered like a bolas, or a piece of jingling steel.
Sometimes we are calmed
like a still lake when there is
not a breath of wind.
All the world goes by
without effort and our depths
revealed to our selves.
We touch the world and
feel exquisite pleasure – our
Maker blessing us.
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