CONTENTS [The sub-titles under each division are of Thoreau's poems and snatches of verse therein included.] "Here then an aged shepherd dwelt" "On Ponkawtasset, since we took our way" SUNDAY 19 20 53 66 Greece, who am I that should remember thee " . "Some tumultuous little rill " "I make ye an offer " "Conscience is instinct bred in the house " "Such water do the gods distill" "That Phaeton of our day" MONDAY "Though all the fates should "The western wind came lumbering in " "Then idle Time ran gadding by " “Away! away! away! away!" 77 86 94 107 128 151 . 226 226 . 229 231 "This is my Carnac, whose unmeasured dome " "True kindness is a pure divine affinity" THE ATLANTIDES "My love must be as free " "The Good how can we trust? " "Nature doth have her dawn each day" FRIENDS, ROMANS, COUNTRYMEN, AND LOVERS "My books I'd fain cast off, I cannot read " FRIDAY THE POET'S DELAY "Men dig and dive but cannot my wealth spend 460 99 . 462 463 The portrait prefacing this volume is from the crayon by S. W. Rowse in 1854, preserved in the Public Library of Concord. A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS INTRODUCTORY NOTE Ir was in August and September, 1839, as The Week is much more than a mere re- lived historic The Dial. It will be remem- He was living in his hut on Walden Pond ciency and soundness, his aboriginal vigor, as if a man had once more come into Nature who knew what Nature meant him to do with her; Virgil and White of Selborne, and Izaak Walton, and Yankee settler all in one. I came home at midnight through the snowy woodpaths, and slept with the pleasing dream that presently the press would give me two books to be proud of,- Emerson's Poems and Thoreau's Week."1 This was written in March, 1847, and Thoreau was probably just about to try the publishers, if his manuscript were not even now resting in his hut from one of its journeys. For in a letter to Emerson, at that time in England, written November 14, 1847, Thoreau says, "I suppose you will like to hear of my book, though I have nothing worth writing about it. Indeed, for the last month or two, I have forgotten it, but shall certainly remember it again. Wiley & Putnam, Munroe, the Harpers, and Crosby & Nichols, have all declined printing it with the least risk to themselves; but Wiley & Putnam will print it in their series, and any of them anywhere, at my risk. If I liked the book well enough, I should not delay; but for the present I am indifferent. I believe this is, after all, 1 A. Bronson Alcott; his Life and Philosophy. By F. B. Sanborn and William T. Harris, p. 446. |