May I love and revere myself above all the gods that men have ever invented.

August 15. 

Friday. 

Hypericum Canadense, Canadian St. John's-wort, distinguished by its red capsules. The petals shine under the microscope, as if they had a golden dew on them. 

Cnicus pumilus, pasture thistle. How many insects a single one attracts ! While you sit by it, bee after bee will visit it, and busy himself probing for honey and loading himself with pollen, regardless of your over shadowing presence. He sees its purple flower from afar, and that use there is in its color. 

Oxalis stricta, upright wood-sorrel, the little yellow ternate-leaved flower in pastures and corn-fields. 

Sagittaria sagittifolia, or arrowhead. It has very little root that I can find to eat. 

Campanula crinoides, var. 2nd, slender bellflower, vine-like like a galium, by brook-side in Depot Field. 

Impatiens, noli-me-tangere, or touch-me-not, with its dangling yellow pitchers or horns of plenty, which I have seen for a month by damp causeway thickets, but the whole plant was so tender and drooped so soon I could not get it home. 

May I love and revere myself above all the gods that men have ever invented. May I never let the vestal fire go out in my recesses.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal August 15, 1851

Hypericum Canadense, Canadian St. John's-wort, distinguished by its red capsules. See July 19, 1856 ("It is the Hypericum ellipticum and Canadense (linear- leaved) whose red pods are noticed now.");August 17, 1856 ("Hypericum Canadense well out at 2 p. m.")   See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)


He sees its purple flower from afar, and that use there is in its color. See August 6, 1852 ("I find a bumblebee asleep in a thistle blossom, having crowded himself in deep amid the dense florets, out of the reach of birds, while the sky was overcast"); ; September 30, 1852 ("If there are any sweet flowers still lingering on the hillside, it is known to the bees both of the forest and the village."); October 11, 1856 ("A pasture thistle with many fresh flowers and bees on it."); March 18, 1860 ("No doubt this flower, too, has learned to expect its winged visitor knocking at its door in the spring."); July 29, 1853 (“The insect that comes after the honey or pollen of a plant is necessary to it and in one sense makes a part of it”)

May I love and revere myself above all the gods See July 16, 1851 ("May I treat myself tenderly as I would treat the most innocent child whom I love; may I treat children and my friends as my newly discovered self. Let me forever go in search of myself; never for a moment think that I have found myself; be as a stranger to myself, never a familiar, seeking acquaintance still. May I be to myself as one is to me whom I love, a dear and cherished object. ...[May] I love and worship myself with a love which absorbs my love for the world.");  January 9, 1853 ("May I lead my life the following year as innocently! May it be as fair and smell as sweet!. . .. It will go forth in April, this vestal now cherishing her fire, to be married to the sun."); October 18, 1855 (“Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.”);