Table of Contents
With slight modifications, the formatting for this table of contents follows that found in The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Vol. I — A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin & Co., 1906), where it is outlined that “The sub-titles under each division are of Thoreau’s poems and snatches of verse therein included.”
Introductory Note
— from the 1906 edition
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Epigraph:
Where’er thou sail’st who sailed with me
Chapter I:
Concord River
The respectable folks
Chapter II:
Saturday
Ah, ’t is in vain the peaceful din
Here then an aged shepherd dwelt
On Ponkawtasset, since we took our way
Chapter III:
Sunday
An early unconverted Saint
Low in the eastern sky
Dong, sounds the brass in the east
Greece, who am I that should remember thee
Some tumultuous little rill
I make ye an offer
Conscience is instinct bred in the house
Such water do the gods distill
That Phæton of our day
Chapter IV:
Monday
Though all the fates should prove unkind
With frontier strength ye stand your ground
The western wind came lumbering in
Then idle Time ran gadding by
Now chiefly is my natal hour
Rumors from an Aeolian Harp
Away! away! away! away!
Chapter V:
Tuesday
Ply the oars! away! away!
Since that first “Away! away!”
Low-anchored cloud
Man’s little acts are grand
The waves slowly beat
Woof of the sun, ethereal gauze
Where gleaming fields of haze
Translations from Anacreon
Thus, perchance, the Indian hunter
Chapter VI:
Wednesday
My life is like a stroll upon the beach
This is my Carnac, whose unmeasured dome
True kindness is a pure divine affinity
Lately, alas, I knew a gentle boy
The Atlantides
My love must be as free
The Good how can we trust
Nature doth have her dawn each day
Let such pure hate still underprop
The Inward Morning
Chapter VII:
Thursday
My books I’d fain cast off, I cannot read
Chapter VIII:
Friday
The Poet’s Delay
I hearing get, who had but ears
Men dig and dive but cannot my wealth spend
Salmon Brook
Oft, as I turn me on my pillow o’er
I am the autumnal sun
A finer race and finer fed
I am a parcel of vain strivings tied
All things are current found
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