“Sometimes I rambled to pine groves, standing like temples, or like fleets at sea, full-rigged, with wavy boughs, and rippling with light, so soft and green and shady that the Druids would have forsaken their oaks to worship in them; or to the cedar wood beyond Flint’s Pond, where the trees, covered with hoary blue berries, spiring higher and higher, are fit to stand before Valhalla, and the creeping juniper covers the ground with wreaths full of fruit; or to swamps where the usnea lichen hangs in festoons from the white-spruce trees, and toadstools, round tables of the swamp gods, cover the ground, and more beautiful fungi adorn the stumps, like butterflies or shells, vegetable winkles; where the swamp-pink and dogwood grow, the red alder-berry glows like eyes of imps, the waxwork grooves and crushes the hardest woods in its folds, and the wild-holly berries make the beholder forget his home with their beauty, and he is dazzled and tempted by nameless other wild forbidden fruits, too fair for mortal taste.
“Instead of calling on some scholar, I paid many a visit to particular trees, of kinds which are rare in this neighborhood, standing far away in the middle of some pasture, or in the depths of a wood or swamp, or on a hill top: such as the black-birch of which we have some handsome specimens two feet in diameter; its cousin the yellow-birch, with its loose golden vest, perfumed like the first; the beech, which has so neat a bole and beautifully lichen-painted, perfect in all its details, of which, excepting scattered specimens, I know but one small grove of sizable trees left in the township, supposed by some to have been planted by the pigeons that were once baited with beech nuts near by; it is worth the while to see the silver grain sparkle when you split this wood; the bass; the hornbeam; the celtis occidentalis, or false elm, of which we have but one well-grown; some taller mast of a pine, a shingle tree, or a more perfect hemlock than usual, standing like a pagoda in the midst of the woods; and many others I could mention. These were the shrines I visited both summer and winter.”—Excerpt from Walden, Henry D. Thoreau.
“He saw with a clear and kindred eye, he understood with his heart, the life of field and wood and water about him. The open sky, the solitudes of the windy hill-top, the sweep of the storm, the spacious changes of dark and dawn, these, it seems to me, spoke to him more clearly than to others.”—C. G. D. Roberts, in Introduction to Walden.
AN AWAKENING
In most of the talks we listen to on Bird and Arbor Day, in most of the poems and prose selections we recite or read to celebrate this occasion, we hear about the awakening of spring, when birds return and trees and early plants blossom, and insects and hibernating animals emerge from a winter’s sleep. All Nature is pictured as rousing from the lethargy of cold December and colder January and February, under the influence of the sun, now early with its morning greeting, and of soft breezes which begin to take the place of chilling gales. But what part has man in all of this glad festival of activity and growth! Does he awaken too, and take his part in the general re-creation of Nature?
No, man is glad when spring comes, he welcomes birds and flowers and budding trees, but he has learned to build shelters for himself against storms, to fight the uneven cold with steady fire, and to raise and store food to nourish his body throughout the season when the ground is frozen and vegetation dead. He does not come to life and activity again with the changing seasons, and, much as he may enjoy spring with its multiform beauties, he seldom rouses out of the routine of his ordinary life, except now and then, perhaps, for a fitful instant. Well-fed, well-clothed and well-housed, he still fears the elements and dreads exposure and hunger. He is not a part of nature, but the ambitious master of nature. Only now and then does a man partly awaken from his civilized life and turn to Nature as to a mother. But when he does, when his eyes are fairly open, when his hand can write or his lips speak the truth, what a revelation comes not only to him but to those who understand his message!
It is of man’s awakening that I wish to tell you this lovely Bird and Arbor Day season, an awakening which you must try to feel if you are not so choked and stifled in towns and cities by ideas of things to wear and eat and amuse yourself with that you cannot understand the truth.
In all ages, a few men have awakened to the touch of Nature. It would be worth our while to know even their names, but, better yet, to know their message. Some have lived as you and I live, others have lived only in books, through the imagination of other men. There was once a lad who was afraid, afraid of the dark, afraid of horses, afraid of many things. As he grew older, he began to feel that there was much he did not enjoy because of fear, and he resolved to conquer fear. He ran through a pasture where a bull was loose, and outwitted the charging creature, escaping to a place of safety. This was rash. He attempted to drive a horse of some spirit through crowded city streets, with no knowledge of driving or sympathy with horses. This was rash, too. He left his companions and guides asleep at night on the edge of the jungle, and wandered alone into the forest, unarmed and almost breathless with fear. It was a rash thing to do, but as he wandered or stood rooted to the ground, while deer, monkeys, frogs, owls, flying squirrels, and at last a tiger, crossed his path, he began to feel a new sense of security and serenity. He found it very wonderful and beautiful. "A warm, faintly-scented breeze just stirred the dead grass and leaves. The trees and bushes stood in pools of darkness, and beyond were pale stretches of misty moonshine and big rocks shining with an unearthly luster. Ahead was darkness, but not so dense, when he came to it, that the track was invisible ... the moon was like a great shield of light spread out above him. All the world seemed swimming in its radiance.... He wished he could walk as a spirit walks—." ... “Of course, the day jungle is the jungle asleep. This was its waking hour. Now the deer were arising from their forms, the tigers and panthers and jungle cats stalking noiselessly from their lairs in the grass. Countless creatures that had hidden from the heat and pitiless exposure of the day stood now awake and alertly intent upon their purposes, grazed or sought water, flitting delicately through the moonlight and shadows. The jungle was awakening. This was the real life of the jungle, this night life, into which man did not go. Here he was on the verge of a world that, for all the stuffed trophies of the sportsman and the specimens of the naturalist, is still almost as unknown as if it were upon another planet.”
“He became less and less timorous as beast and bird evaded him or fled at his approach, and when the moon sank suddenly, and darkness settled down, ‘a great stillness came over the world, a velvet silence that wrapped about him, as the velvet shadows wrapped about him. The corncrakes had ceased, all the sounds and stir of animal life had died away, the breeze had fallen,’ and thus, calm and full of placid joy, he waited for the dawn, for he had conquered fear.”