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The Writings of Henry David Thoreau

In Twenty Volumes

VOLUME V

Manuscript Edition
Limited to Six Hundred Copies
Number ----



  [Illustration: _Apple Blossoms (page 294)_]

  [Illustration: _Wild Apple Tree_]



The Writings of Henry David Thoreau

EXCURSIONS AND POEMS







Boston and New York
Houghton Mifflin and Company
MDCCCCVI

Copyright 1865 and 1866 by Ticknor and Fields
Copyright 1893 and 1906 by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

All rights reserved




CONTENTS


     INTRODUCTORY NOTE                            xi


     EXCURSIONS

     A YANKEE IN CANADA

       I. CONCORD TO MONTREAL                      3

      II. QUEBEC AND MONTMORENCI                  20

     III. ST. ANNE                                40

      IV. THE WALLS OF QUEBEC                     69

       V. THE SCENERY OF QUEBEC; AND THE
          RIVER ST. LAWRENCE                      85

     NATURAL HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS            103

     A WALK TO WACHUSETT                         133

     THE LANDLORD                                153

     A WINTER WALK                               163

     THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES              184

     WALKING                                     205

     AUTUMNAL TINTS                              249

     WILD APPLES                                 290

     NIGHT AND MOONLIGHT                         323


     TRANSLATIONS

     THE PROMETHEUS BOUND OF AESCHYLUS           337

     TRANSLATIONS FROM PINDAR                    375


     POEMS

     NATURE                                      395

     INSPIRATION                                 396

     THE AURORA OF GUIDO                         399

     TO THE MAIDEN IN THE EAST                   400

     TO MY BROTHER                               403

     GREECE                                      404

     THE FUNERAL BELL                            405

     THE MOON                                    406

     THE FALL OF THE LEAF                        407

     THE THAW                                    409

     A WINTER SCENE                              410

     TO A STRAY FOWL                             411

     POVERTY                                     412

     PILGRIMS                                    413

     THE DEPARTURE                               414

     INDEPENDENCE                                415

     DING DONG                                   417

     OMNIPRESENCE                                417

     INSPIRATION (QUATRAIN)                      418

     MISSION                                     418

     DELAY                                       418

     PRAYER                                      418


     A LIST OF THE POEMS AND BITS OF VERSE
     SCATTERED AMONG THOREAU'S PROSE
     WRITINGS EXCLUSIVE OF THE JOURNAL           420

     INDEX                                       423




ILLUSTRATIONS


     APPLE BLOSSOMS, _Carbon photograph (page 294)_     _Frontispiece_

     WILD APPLE TREE,                                  _Colored plate_

     MONTREAL FROM MOUNT ROYAL                                      98

     MOUNT WACHUSETT FROM THE WAYLAND HILLS                        134

     THE OLD MARLBOROUGH ROAD                                      214

     FALLEN LEAVES                                                 270

     WILD APPLE TREE                                               300




INTRODUCTORY NOTE


The "Excursions" of the present volume follow the arrangement of the
volume bearing that title in the Riverside Edition, which differed
somewhat as to contents from the "Excursions" collected by Thoreau's
sister after his death, and published in 1863 by Messrs. Ticknor &
Fields. The Biographical Sketch by Emerson which prefaced the latter
appears in the first volume of the present edition.

"A Yankee in Canada," which here, as in the Riverside Edition, is made
the first of the series of Excursions, was formerly published in a
volume with "Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers." Thoreau made this
excursion to Canada with his friend Ellery Channing, and sent his
narrative to Mr. Greeley, who wrote him regarding it, March 18, 1852:
"I shall get you some money for the articles you sent me, though not
immediately. As to your long account of a Canadian tour, I don't know.
It looks unmanageable. Can't you cut it into three or four, and omit
all that relates to time? The cities are described to death, but I
know you are at home with Nature, and that _she_ rarely and slowly
changes. Break this up, if you can, and I will try to have it
swallowed and digested." Thoreau appears to have taken Greeley's
advice, and the narrative was divided into chapters. But after it had
been begun in _Putnam's_ in January, 1853, where it was entitled
"Excursion to Canada," the author and the editor, who appears from
the following letter to have been Mr. G. W. Curtis, disagreed
regarding the expediency of including certain passages, and Thoreau
withdrew all after the third chapter. The letter is as follows:--

           NEW YORK, January 2, 1853.

      FRIEND THOREAU.... I am sorry you and C. cannot agree so as to
      have your whole MS. printed. It will be worth nothing
      elsewhere after having partly appeared in _Putnam's_. I think
      it is a mistake to conceal the authorship of the several
      articles, making them all (so to speak) _editorial_; but _if_
      that is done, don't you see that the elimination of very
      flagrant heresies (like your defiant Pantheism) becomes a
      necessity? If you had withdrawn your MS. on account of the
      abominable misprints in the first number, your ground would
      have been far more tenable. However, do what you will. Yours,

          HORACE GREELEY.

"Natural History of Massachusetts" was contributed to _The Dial_,
July, 1842, nominally as a review of some recent State reports. "A
Walk to Wachusett" was printed in _The Boston Miscellany_, 1843. Mr.
Sanborn, in his volume on Thoreau, prints a very interesting letter
written by Margaret Fuller in 1841, in criticism of the verses which
stand near the beginning of the paper, offered at that time for
publication in _The Dial_. "The Landlord" was printed in _The
Democratic Review_ for October, 1843. "A Winter Walk" appeared in _The
Dial_ in the same month and year. Emerson in a letter to Thoreau,
September 8, 1843, says: "I mean to send the 'Winter's Walk' to the
printer to-morrow for _The Dial_. I had some hesitation about it,
notwithstanding its faithful observation and its fine sketches of the
pickerel-fisher and of the woodchopper, on account of _mannerism_, an
old charge of mine,--as if, by attention, one could get the trick of
the rhetoric; for example, to call a cold place sultry, a solitude
public, a wilderness _domestic_ (a favorite word), and in the woods to
insult over cities, armies, etc. By pretty free omissions, however, I
have removed my principal objections." The address "The Succession of
Forest Trees" was printed first in _The New York Tribune_, October 6,
1860, and was perhaps the latest of his writings which Thoreau saw in
print.

After his death the interest which had already been growing was
quickened by the successive publication in _The Atlantic Monthly_ of
"Autumnal Tints" and "Wild Apples" in October and November, 1862, and
"Night and Moonlight" November, 1863. The last named appeared just
before the publication of the volume "Excursions," which collected the
several papers.

"May Days" and "Days and Nights in Concord," which were printed in the
Riverside Edition, are now omitted as consisting merely of extracts
from Thoreau's Journal and therefore superseded by the publication of
the latter in its complete form.

       *       *       *       *       *

A few of Thoreau's poems, taken from the "Week" and elsewhere, were
added by Mr. Emerson to the volume entitled "Letters to Various
Persons" which he brought out in 1865, but it was not till the volume
of "Miscellanies" was issued in the Riverside Edition that the
otherwise unpublished verse of his that had appeared in _The Dial_ was
gathered into a single volume. Besides the _Dial_ contributions, the
Riverside "Miscellanies" contained a few poems that first found
publication in Mr. Sanborn's Life of Thoreau. But the collection was
not intended to be complete.

Many of Thoreau's poems, including his translations from the
Anacreontics, are imbedded in the "Week," "Walden," and "Excursions,"
and it seemed best not to reproduce them in another volume. In 1895,
shortly after the publication of the Riverside Thoreau, Mr. Henry S.
Salt and Mr. Frank B. Sanborn brought out a book entitled "Poems of
Nature by Henry David Thoreau," in which were collected "perhaps two
thirds of [the poems] which Thoreau preserved." "Many of them," says
the Introduction to that volume, "were printed by him, in whole or in
part, among his early contributions to Emerson's _Dial_, or in his own
two volumes, the _Week_ and _Walden_.... Others were given to Mr.
Sanborn for publication, by Sophia Thoreau, the year after her
brother's death (several appeared in the _Boston Commonwealth_ in
1863); or have been furnished from time to time by Mr. Blake, his
literary executor." This volume contained a number of poems which had
not before appeared in any of Thoreau's published books. Such poems
are now added to those of the Riverside Edition. The present
collection, however, no more than its predecessors pretends to
completeness. It includes only those of Thoreau's poems which have
been previously published and which are not contained in other volumes
of this series. A list of the poems and scattered bits of verse
printed in the other volumes will be found in an Appendix. The Journal
also contains, especially in the early part, a number of heretofore
unpublished poems which it seems best to retain in their original
setting.




EXCURSIONS




A YANKEE IN CANADA


New England is by some affirmed to be an island, bounded on the north
with the River Canada (so called from Monsieur Cane).--JOSSELYN'S
RARITIES.

And still older, in Thomas Morton's "New English Canaan," published in
1632, it is said, on page 97, "From this Lake [Erocoise] Northwards is
derived the famous River of Canada, so named, of Monsier de Cane, a
French Lord, who first planted a colony of French in America."




A YANKEE IN CANADA




CHAPTER I

CONCORD TO MONTREAL


I fear that I have not got much to say about Canada, not having seen
much; what I got by going to Canada was a cold. I left Concord,
Massachusetts, Wednesday morning, September 25th, 1850, for Quebec.
Fare, seven dollars