It is impossible for the same person to see things from the poet's point of view and that of the man of science.

February 18. 

I have a commonplace-book for facts and another for poetry, but I find it difficult always to preserve the vague distinction which I had in my mind, for the most interesting and beautiful facts are so much the more poetry and that is their success. They are translated from earth to heaven. I see that if my facts were sufficiently vital and significant, — perhaps transmuted more into the substance of the human mind, — I should need but one book of poetry to contain them all. 

P. M.— To Fair Haven Hill. 

One discovery in meteorology, one significant observation, is a good deal. I am grateful to the man who introduces order among the clouds. Yet I look up into the heavens so fancy free, I am almost glad not to know any law for the winds. 

I find the partridges among the fallen pine-tops on Fair Haven these afternoons, an hour before sundown, ready to commence budding in the neighboring orchard. 

The mosses on the rocks look green where the snow has melted. This must be one of the spring signs, when spring comes. 

It is impossible for the same person to see things from the poet's point of view and that of the man of science. The poet's second love may be science, not his first, — when use has worn off the bloom. I realize that men may be born to a condition of mind at which others arrive in middle age by the decay of their poetic faculties.

H. D Thoreau, Journal,  February 18, 1852

The most interesting and beautiful facts are so much the more poetry . See May 6, 1854 (“There is no such thing as pure objective observation. Your observation, to be interesting, i. e. to be significant, must be subjective. ”); November 5, 1857 ("I think that the man of science makes this mistake, and the mass of mankind along with him: that you should coolly give your chief attention to the phenomenon which excites you as something independent on you, and not as it is related to you.”)

I am almost glad not to know any law for the winds. See December 25, 1851 ("I witness a beauty in the form or coloring of the clouds which addresses itself to my imagination, for which you account scientifically to my understanding, but do not so account to my imagination. It is what it suggests and is the symbol of that I care for, and if, by any trick of science, you rob it of its symbolicalness, you do me no service and explain nothing.")  September 13, 1852 (“I have the habit of attention to such excess that my senses get no rest, but suffer from a constant strain. When I have found myself ever looking down and confining my gaze to the flowers, I have thought it might be well to get into the habit of observing the clouds as a corrective; but no! that study would be just as bad. It is as bad to study stars and clouds as flowers and stones.”)

I find the partridges among the fallen pine-tops on Fair Haven these afternoons, an hour before sundown, ready to commence budding in the neighboring orchard. See note to  February 11, 1855 (“The dog scares up some partridges out of the soft snow under the apple trees in the Tommy Wheeler orchard”)

 This must be one of the spring signs.  See  February 18, 1854 (“It does not take so much fuel to keep us warm of late. I begin to think that my wood will last. We begin to have days precursors of spring.”); February 18, 1855 ("Now for the first time decidedly there is something spring-suggesting in the air and light. . . . I listen ever for something springlike in the notes of birds, some peculiar tinkling notes.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau., signs of spring: mosses bright green

It is impossible for the same person to see things from the poet's point of view and that of the man of science. See February 13, 1852 ("Color, which is the poet's wealth is so expensive that most take to mere outline or pencil sketches and become men of science."); February 16, 1852 ("Linnæus says elementa are simple, naturalia composed by divine art. And these two embrace all things on earth. Physics treats of the properties of elementa, natural science of naturalia. . . .By the artificial system we learn the names of plants, by the natural their relations to one another; but still it remains to learn their relation to man. The poet does more for us in this department.");  November 5, 1857 ("I think that the man of science makes this mistake, and the mass of mankind along with him: that you should coolly give your chief attention to the phenomenon which excites you as something independent on you, and not as it is related to you.”); February 28, 1860 ("As it is important to consider Nature from the point of view of science, remembering the nomenclature and system of men, and so, if possible, go a step further in that direction, so it is equally important often to ignore or forget all that men presume that they know, and take an original and unprejudiced view of Nature, letting her make what impression she will on you, as the first men, and all children and natural men still do.")