Quotes About Nature

I depart as air .... I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.

Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul, There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.

I visit the orchards of God and look at the spheric product And look at quintillions ripened, and look at quintillions green.

As I see my soul reflected in Nature, As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness, sanity, beauty, See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see.

Have you ever thought how much is in the negative quality of nature—the negative—the simply loafing, doing nothing, worrying about nothing, living out of doors and getting fresh air, plenty of sleep—letting everything else take care of itself?

The Americans of all nations at any time upon the earth have probably the fullest poetical nature. The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.

After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, love, and so on — have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear — what remains? Nature remains; to bring out from their torpid recesses, the affinities of a man or woman with the open air, the trees, fields, the changes of seasons — the sun by day and the stars of heaven by night.

After all, the great lesson is that no special natural sights---not Alps, Niagara, Yosemite or anything else---is more grand or more beautiful than the ordinary sunrise and sunset, earth and sky, the common trees and grass.

The chief trait of any given poet is always the spirit he brings to the observation of Humanity and Nature—the mood out of which he contemplates his subjects.

The land and sea, the animals, fishes, and birds, the sky of heaven and the orbs, the forests, mountains, and rivers, are not small themes … but folks expect of the poet to indicate more than the beauty and dignity which always attach to dumb real objects … they expect him to indicate the path between reality and their souls.

I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,   Nature without check with original energy.

morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.

Loafe with me on the grass.... loose the stop from your throat, Not words, not music or rhyme I want.... not custom or lecture, not even the best, Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice. I mind how we lay in June, such a transparent summer morning; You settled your head athwart my hips and gently turned over upon me, And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my barestript heart, And reached till you felt my beard, and reached till you held my feet.

And as to you Corpse I think you are good manure, but that does not offend me, I smell the white roses sweet-scented and growing, I reach to the leafy lips, I reach to the polish'd breasts of melons.

Your breath falls around me like dew

Over the mountain growths, disease and sorrow, An uncaught bird is ever hovering, hovering, High in the purer, happier air.

The youth lies awake in the cedar-roof'd garret and harks to the musical rain

The earth recedes from me into the night, I saw that it was beautiful . . . . and I see that what is not the earth is beautiful.

The earth, that is sufficient, I do not want the constellations any nearer, I know they are very well where they are, I know they suffice for those who belong to them.

The red aborigines, Leaving natural breaths, sounds of rain and winds, calls as of birds and animals in the woods, syllabled to us for names, Okonee, Koosa, Ottawa, Monongahela, Sauk, Natchez, Chattahoochee, Kaqueta, Oronoco, Wabash, Miami, Saginaw, Chippewa, Oshkosh, Walla-Walla, Leaving such to the States, they melt, they depart, charging the water and the land with names. -from Starting from Paumanok

Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me? (I think they hang there winter and summer on those trees and always drop fruit as I pass;)

The smallest sprout shows there is really no death.

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night, I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.

Lo, the unbounded sea,   On its breast a ship starting, spreading all sails, carrying even       her moonsails.   The pennant is flying aloft as she speeds she speeds so stately—       below emulous waves press forward,   They surround the ship with shining curving motions and foam.         I