Day would not dawn if it were not for the inward Morning.

As we sat on the bank eating our supper, 

the clear light of the western sky fell on the eastern trees, 

and was reflected in the water, 

and we enjoyed so serene an evening as left nothing to describe . . .

It is when we do not have to believe, 

but come into actual contact with Truth, 

and are related to her 

in the most direct and intimate way.

Waves of serener life pass over us from time to time, 

like flakes of sunlight over the fields in cloudy weather. . .

This world is but canvas to our imaginations . . .
“Imagination is the air of mind,” in which it lives and breathes.

All things are as I am . . . 

I am astonished at the singular pertinacity 

and endurance of our lives. 

The miracle is, that what is is,

when it is so difficult, if not impossible, for anything else to be;

•  that we walk on in our particular paths so far, before we fall on death and fate, merely because we must walk in some path; 
• that every man can get a living, and so few can do anything more. 
• So much only can I accomplish ere health and strength are gone,

 and yet this suffices . . .

When every other path would fail, 

with singular and unerring confidence 

we advance on our particular course. 

What risks we run! . . .

yet every man lives till he—dies. 

How did he manage that?

. . . 

I have found all things thus far, persons and inanimate matter, elements and seasons, strangely adapted to my resources . . .

Day would not dawn if it were not for the inward morning.

THE INWARD MORNING

Packed in my mind lie all the clothes
    Which outward nature wears,
And in its fashion’s hourly change
    It all things else repairs.

In vain I look for change abroad,
    And can no difference find,
Till some new ray of peace uncalled
    Illumes my inmost mind.

What is it gilds the trees and clouds,
    And paints the heavens so gay,
But yonder fast-abiding light
    With its unchanging ray?

Lo, when the sun streams through the wood,
    Upon a winter’s morn,
Where’er his silent beams intrude,
    The murky night is gone.

How could the patient pine have known
    The morning breeze would come,
Or humble flowers anticipate
    The insect’s noonday hum,—

Till the new light with morning cheer
    From far streamed through the aisles,
And nimbly told the forest trees
    For many stretching miles?

I’ve heard within my inmost soul
    Such cheerful morning news,
In the horizon of my mind
    Have seen such orient hues,

As in the twilight of the dawn,
    When the first birds awake,
Are heard within some silent wood,
    Where they the small twigs break,

Or in the eastern skies are seen,
    Before the sun appears,
The harbingers of summer heats
    Which from afar he bears.

Whole weeks and months of my summer life slide away in thin volumes like mist and smoke, till at length, some warm morning, perchance, I see a sheet of mist blown down the brook to the swamp, and I float as high above the fields with it. 

H. D. Thoreau, A Week, Wednesday

Waves of serener life pass over us from time to time, like flakes of sunlight over the fields in cloudy weather. See June 22, 1851 ("I awake . . .with the calmness of a lake when there is not a breath of wind.")

I have found all things thus far, persons and inanimate matter, elements and seasons, strangely adapted to my resources. See Walden ("Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Nature is genial to man (the anthropic principle)

Such cheerful morning news / in the horizon of my mind. See Walden (“Only that day dawns to which we are awake.”); Walden ("We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, by an infinite expectation of the dawn.”);  Walden (“Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me.”); March 17, 1852 ("There is a moment in the dawn, when the darkness of the night is dissipated and before the exhalations of the day commence to rise, when we see things more truly than at any other time")

and I float as high above the fields See Walden ("By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their consequences; and all things, good and bad, go by us like a torrent . . . I may be either the driftwood in the stream, or Indra in the sky looking down on it")

AND SEE.

"There is no Road":


Traveler, your footprints 

are the only road, nothing else.
Traveler, there is no road;
you make your own path as you walk.
As you walk, you make your own road,
and when you look back
you see the path 

you will never travel again.
Traveler, there is no road;
only a ship's wake on the sea.

-Antonio Machado

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  the Inward Morning.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2024