(More excerpts from Autumnal Tints and Thoreau's October Journal entries)
How pleasant to walk over beds of these fresh, crisp, and rustling fallen leaves, --
young hyson, green tea, clean, crisp and wholesome!
How beautiful they go to their graves!
For beautiful variety no crop can be compared with this.
Here is not merely the plain yellow of the grains, but nearly all the colors that we know…
The ground is all party-colored with them.
But they still live in the soil, whose fertility and bulk they increase,
and in the forests that spring from it.
They stoop to rise,
to mount higher in coming years, by subtle chemistry,
climbing by the sap in the trees,
and the sapling’s first fruits thus shed, transmuted at last,
and the sapling’s first fruits thus shed, transmuted at last,
may adorn its crown, when, in after-years,
it has become the monarch of the forest.
Another stunner, Sue. Thanks for bringing Thoreau's words to life so splendidly.
ReplyDeleteWow...just...amazingly perfect entry. (First photo is my absolute favorite for the colors & composition)
ReplyDeleteThanks, my friends -
ReplyDeletesometimes I know I lean way too heavily on Mr. Thoreau, BUT there are days when I'm walking and his phrases just rattle around in my head, or I see the embodiment of something he described.
It's really nothing new ... there is quite a list of photographers who have been directly inspired by him, beginning I think with Herbert W. Gleason around 1905.
These pictures stand on their own, but as illustrations to Thoreau's words the are glorious. The colours against the sky where you look up into the canopy are sensational. One day I will visit this place in the fall.
ReplyDelete