Page:Writings of Henry David Thoreau (1906) v7.djvu/162

84

All things are up and down, east and west, to me. In me is the forum out of which go the Appian and Sacred ways, and a thousand beside, to the ends of the world. If I forget my centralness, and say a bean winds with or against the sun, and not right or left, it will not be true south of the equator.

July 18.

Up this pleasant stream let's row

For the livelong summer's day,

Sprinkling foam where'er we go

In wreaths as white as driven snow.

Ply the oars! away! away!

Now we glide along the shore,

Chucking lilies as we go,

While the yellow-sanded floor

Doggedly resists the oar,

Like some turtle dull and slow.

Now we stem the middle tide,

Plowing through the deepest soil;

Ridges pile on either side,

While we through the furrow glide,

Reaping bubbles for our toil.

Dew before and drought behind,

Onward all doth seem to fly;

Naught contents the eager mind,

Only rapids now are kind,

Forward are the earth and sky.