Henry David Thoreau

Tall Ambrosia

Among the signs of autumn I perceiveThe Roman wormwood (called by learned menAmbrosia elatior, food for gods,—For to impartial science the humblest weedIs as immortal once as the proudest flower—)Sprinkles its yellow dust over my shoesAs I cross the now neglected garden.—We trample under foot the food of godsAnd spill their nectar in each dropp…

I am a parcel of vain strivings tied

Dangling this way and that, their linksWere made so loose and wide,Methinks,For milder weather.A bunch of violets without their roots,And sorrel intermixed,Encircled by a wisp of strawOnce coiled about their shoots,The lawBy which I’m fixed.A nosegay which Time clutched from outThose fair Elysian fields,With weeds and broken stems, in haste,Doth make the rabble routThat wasteThe…