Moonlight on Fair Haven Pond
Seen from the Cliffs a
sheeny lake in the midst of
a boundless forest
the windy surf sounding
freshly and wildly in the
single pine behind you
the silence of hushed
wolves in the wilderness and
as you fancy moose
looking off from the
shore of the lake --
the stars of
poetry history
unexplored nature
looking down on the scene.
This is my world now.
Fair Haven by moonlight.
A dull whitish mark curving
northward through forest
lies there like a lake
in the Maine wilderness
untrodden by man.
This light and this hour
take the civilization
out of the landscape.
Even village dogs
bay to the moon --
in forests like this
we listen to hear wolves
howl to Cynthia.
Even at this hour
in the evening --
the crickets chirp
the wind roars in the wood as
if just before dawn.
The moonlight seems to
linger as if giving way to
light of coming day.
Moonlit landscapes from
the slightest elevation
are seen remotely
flattened as it were
into mere light and shade
open field and forest
like the surface of
the earth seen from the
top of a mountain.
How much excited
we are by a great many
particular fragrances --
now at night a field
of ripening corn that has
been topped with the stalks
stacked up to dry – an
inexpressibly dry rich
sweet ripening scent!
Is not the whole air
a compound of such odors
undistinguishable?
What an herb-garden!
Drying corn-stalks in a field --
I feel as if
I were an ear of
ripening corn myself.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 5, 1851
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