Diddy-Wah-Diddy ... is a place of no work and no worry for man or beast. The road to it is so crooked that a mule pulling a load o...f fodder can eat off the back of the wagon as he plods along. All curbstones are chairs, and all food is already cooked. Baked chickens and sweet potato pies, with convenient knives and forks, drift along crying, 'Eat me! Eat me!'LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,... Quite overcanopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine: There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Come unto these yellow sands, And then take hands.... Curtsied when you have and kissed The wild waves whist, Foot it featly here and there; And, sweet sprites, the burden bear.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A sweet disorder in the dress Kindles in clothes a wantonness:... A lawn about the shoulders thrown Into a fine distraction: An erring lace, which here and there Enthralls the crimson stomacher: A cuff neglectful, and thereby Ribbands to flow confusedly: A winning wave (deserving note) In the tempestuous petticoat: A careless shoestring, in whose tie I see a wild civility: Do more bewitch me than when art Is too precise in every part.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I heard the bells, on Christmas Day, Their old, familiar carols play,... And wild and sweet The words repeat Of peace on earth, good will to men.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For do but note a wild and wanton herd Or race of youthful and unhandled colts... Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud, Which is the hot condition of their blood; If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound, Or any air of music touch their ears, You shall perceive them make a mutual stand, Their savage eyes turned to a modest gaze By the sweet power of music.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Dear as remembered kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned... On lips that are for others; deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; O Death in Life, the days that are no more.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
This afternoon's experience suggested to me how base or coarse are the motives which commonly carry men into the wilderness. The e...xplorers and lumberers generally are all hirelings, paid so much a day for their labor, and as such they have no more love for wild nature than wood-sawyers have for forests. Other white men and Indians who come here are for the most part hunters, whose object is to slay as many moose and other wild animals as possible. But, pray, could not one spend some weeks or years in the solitude of this vast wilderness with other employments than these,--employments perfectly sweet and innocent and ennobling?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I have never felt lonesome, or in the least oppressed by a sense of solitude, but once, and that was a few weeks after I came to t...he woods, when, for an hour, I doubted if the near neighborhood of man was not essential to a serene and healthy life. To be alone was something unpleasant. But I was at the same time conscious of a slight insanity in my mood, and seemed to foresee my recovery. In the midst of a gentle rain while these thoughts prevailed, I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops, and in every sound and sight around my house, an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining me, as made the fancied advantages of human neighborhood insignificant, and I have never thought of them since. Every little pine needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me. I was so distinctly made aware of the presence of something kindred to me, even in scenes which we are accustomed to call wild and dreary, and also that the nearest of blood to me and humanest was not a person nor a villager, that I thought no place could ever be strange to me again.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »