Slower in these fluttering days
of freeze and thaw,
Face to the sun when it's there,
cautious on the ice,
Slow enough in either case to see
patterns of the moment,
Old footprints raised above the snow,
The comings and goings of life,
which moves too fast.
Yet in first light did not we see
A few weak stars above the woods
low in the velvet south,
And in that moment understood
We have not exhausted joy,
not sentiment, though brief?
So let our years become advanced
While still advancing youth,
and not forget the living tree
whose bud follows hard upon leaf.
If our living is not poetic, it is not life but death that we get.
—Thoreau, March 1, 1851
